


it's all the rage, darling

by sweetchaostree



Series: the beating heart of Panem (hunger games AU) [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Johnny as a victor and Ten as a stylist, M/M, are you coming to the tree? they said, glamour and gold and gemstones, the violence/sex is not very explicit, which one? we live in district seven.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:42:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29143911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetchaostree/pseuds/sweetchaostree
Summary: Johnny has lived the past couple of years after victory in relative numbness. Then he becomes a mentor, and starts to realize what the price of victory means.(Or: how Johnny and Ten learn and grow together, even in a world of glitter and glamour where nothing natural is supposed to take root.)
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Series: the beating heart of Panem (hunger games AU) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2186502
Comments: 21
Kudos: 73





	it's all the rage, darling

**Author's Note:**

> this is what I have been working on nonstop instead of my miraculous ladybug au haha. this fic draws inspiration from previous hunger games AU fics in this fandom, particularly [remember the fireworks back then](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17778716) by pyrophane and [so hold my hand consign me not to darkness](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9980045) by pududoll. seriously these fics absolutely destroyed me when I first read them, and I find myself revisiting them again and again because they're just so amazing. also shoutout to all the other hunger games fics in this fandom as well, I read most of them while trying to figure out how to write this fic haha and there are many amazing fics out there other than the two that I just mentioned! I hope people will enjoy this fic even half as much as all the ones that have come before it.
> 
> also, if any of you are curious, this fic assumes the Career training system from remember the fireworks back then and [this post](https://themockingjay.livejournal.com/450940.html), although it's not explicitly mentioned because this fic doesn't focus on any Careers. so it's not important to the story if you don't know about it, but it could provide further insight on a certain character if you already do know about it.
> 
> without further ado, I hope you all enjoy! <3

The first time Johnny meets Ten, Ten's hair is a bright silver-blue and he's wearing a shiny silver shirt that moves like silk, tucked into black ripped skinny jeans with a sparkle-studded belt. When he walks across the room to greet Johnny with a bright smile, his shirt reflects a rainbow of colors. For a stylist, Johnny had expected someone a lot more flashy or absurd, like their escort with his blonde bowl cut and large metallic headdress extending downwards to cage around his body like golden vines. ("This hair is in style right now," Jungwoo had chattered as he'd pranced around the train car on the way to the Capitol.) 

"Hi, my name is Ten! I'm going to be one of your stylists!" Ten beams brightly, reaching out to shake Johnny's hand eagerly. Johnny stiffens a little when Ten leans in to kiss his cheek, hands coming up reflexively to try and push Ten away before he forces himself to relax and take a deep breath. The smell of cinnamon sugar fills his nose. He reminds himself that an innocent, airheaded Capitol citizen isn't a threat.

He pastes on a smile once Ten pulls away, that polite Capitol smile that comes easy as breathing to him now. "It's wonderful to meet you. I'm Johnny, but I'm sure you already know that." He throws in a wink for good measure, already slipping back into the charming persona that had won him enough sponsors to survive.

Ten laughs. "Oh, how could I not? Of course I watched your Games four years ago." He then turns to greet Yuta, who is standing beside Johnny and sporting his signature bright grin. "And you! Nakamoto Yuta, right?" He shakes Yuta's hand just as enthusiastically, repeating the cheek kisses. "But my gosh, your smile is even more blinding in person! I never thought I'd get to meet you! I mean, I see so much of you on the screens but it's different seeing that you're actually real!"

At that moment the door behind him slides open, and out steps another man with hair dyed red on one side and silver on the other. He, too, is dressed in the flamboyant styles of the Capitol. Ten's face lights up. "Yongie!" He runs over and grabs onto the other man's arm, dragging him over in front of Johnny and Yuta. "Yongie is going to be the other stylist for this district!"

"Hello, my name is Taeyong!" he greets enthusiastically. "It's so nice to meet you both!"

After the obligatory handshakes and cheek kisses, the four of them settle down on a ring of couches to talk.

"So!" Taeyong begins, clapping his hands. "Tennie and I just wanted to meet you two before meeting with the tributes so we could get to know you guys! We're going to be working with each other a lot in the future, so I hope we all get along well!"

Ten nods. "Yes, especially since we're all new! This is our first year as stylists, and it's also your first year mentoring, right? I think it's so exciting that we get to start this new journey together," he gushes, eyes bright with enthusiasm.

Johnny and Yuta share a look. What was so exciting about committing to a life of getting attached to people only to watch them die a few days later?

"Anyways, Taeyong and I were also thinking— I know our main job is to style the tributes, but wouldn't it be nice if we styled the two of you as well? To present more of a unified front?"

"Ah, we wouldn't want to make more work for you," responds Yuta courteously, which probably means _if you try to give me a bubble bath I will murder you_.

Johnny jumps in to back Yuta up. "Yes, especially since this is outside of your job description..."

"Ten and I love styling though, it's no big deal!" replies Taeyong. "We wouldn't be in this job otherwise."

Ten nods in agreement. The two of them look so genuine and enthusiastic, even through all the glitter and the colored contacts they both wear.

"Look," says Yuta shortly. "I just have my own sense of fashion, and I like picking my clothes for myself."

Taeyong and Ten nod in understanding, although they look a bit dejected at not being able to style him. "Of course, we totally understand! What about you though, Johnny?" asks Ten. "We could still style you, if you want."

They look so hopeful that Johnny can’t help feeling bad at the thought of rejecting them. He reminds himself that these are just dumb Capitol sheep; despite how excited they seem now, they would probably get over their disappointment in a matter of seconds if he said no. The people of the Capitol are fickle and capricious. However, the point they brought up about showing unity is a good tactic. Since he and Yuta are new mentors, they don't have the sponsor networks that some of the other mentors have built up. They need all the sentimentality they can get to attract new sponsors.

"Okay, sure," he ends up saying. A look of surprise flits across Yuta's face, gone as quick as it came. "I like the focus on unity, it's a nice theme."

"Great!" Ten exclaims. "Now that that's all settled, where are your tributes? I'd love to meet them!"

Their two tributes are both Seventeens, Kim Yerim and Wong Yukhei. They’re both attractive, so it shouldn’t be too hard for them to get sponsors, and they both look like the fighting type. Yukhei is tall and strong and good with an axe. Yerim isn't physically strong, but she's witty and sharp, so she'll probably garner some good support in the interview. Johnny thinks that maybe one of them has a chance of making it home, but he quashes down that hope and reminds himself not to get attached.

Johnny mentors Yerim, because he has more experience with playing up his personality and Yerim is going to need that to gain sponsors. On the other hand, Yukhei already has a large personality; however, he needs to learn to be more wary and pick up some more survival skills, which is more in Yuta's expertise. Yuta won his Games with the lone wolf image, springing traps and surprise attacks and setting fire to half the forest to win. The promotional victory poster for that year was an image of him posing among a landscape of blackened, charred tree trunks, bodies under his feet and ash all over his boots.

"So? What do you think?"

Johnny looks up upon hearing Ten's voice and sees that Yerim has stepped out of the changing room, draped in a pure white dress with colorful origami cranes on it. More cranes are nested in her hair and resting on her shoulders. There is red painted around her eyes and outlined in black, like a real crane, and a pair of wings extend from her back. She looks stunning and graceful, youthful and bold.

"Wow," Johnny says, momentarily speechless. He didn't have very high expectations, considering Ten's general silliness and the atrocious fashion trends of the Capitol. "She looks amazing. I'm surprised you didn't just make her a tree."

Surprisingly, Ten groans, the first sound Johnny has heard out of him that isn't a giggle. "Ugh, don't even mention the trees. I'm so sick of the trees. Every year, I would watch the parade, and think to myself, I can totally do better than that." He laughs a little, seeming abashed. "Okay, I know that sounds totally stuck up, but seriously! It looked like the same costume every year!"

Johnny laughs at Ten's contrite expression. "That's because it actually was. It was a one size fits all kind of deal. Very stretchy." Johnny makes a face at the memory, remembering the feeling of pulling the fabric over his legs and up to his neck. It was essentially a bodysuit printed to make the legs look like roots and the torso look like a trunk, with a green leafy headdress to top off the look. It was so thin that Johnny felt practically naked the whole chariot ride; it had taken all of his effort to stand straight and smile instead of hide like he wanted to.

Ten gasps. "That's awful! Honestly, with a face like yours, it was such a shame you had to be forced into that monstrosity." He sighs wistfully. "Luckily, you have me now! Yerim, spin around a little, tell me how you feel!"

Ten claps and cheers as Yerim spins around in her dress with a grin. "This is so much cooler than being a tree," she declares. "At least now I can die in style!"

Johnny laughs, but it feels hollow. "Come on, Yerim, don't say that. The more that you think you're going to die, the more likely it is that you will."

Yerim frowns. "We all know I don't stand a chance. I might as well accept it now."

Johnny shakes his head. "Everyone has a chance. You're smart and witty and pretty, the audience will love you. And you're very decisive." He hesitates a bit, thinking _wow, this is his first pep talk_. He's really doing this. "You're very determined, and I think that if you decide that you want to win this, you have a very good chance."

Yerim looks conflicted. "I don't really want to win, though, because then I'd have to kill people. I just... don't want to die."

"I know." Johnny sighs. "But people rarely win with that mindset. Why do you think the Careers win so often? Sure, some of it is their training and sponsor networks, but there are plenty of people from other districts who are good with axes or tridents or survival skills. The difference with the Careers is that they're in it to win it, not just to survive. And I can't give you years of Career training, but I can at least try to convince you that you need to win in order to come home."

Yerim nods grimly. "Okay."

Ten glances back and forth between them, unnerved by the sudden change in atmosphere. He claps his hands and laughs a little nervously. "Don't worry, Yerim, I'm cheering for you! I've already started designing your outfits for the victory tour, so you better make sure you get to wear them, okay?" He demands sternly, pointing a finger at her in mock seriousness. Surprisingly, this makes her laugh, and Johnny finds himself laughing along. 

"Okay, I'll try my best," she says with a tentative smile. "I wouldn't mind getting to wear pretty dresses for the rest of my life."

"I'll design you all the dresses you want," Ten promises.

Ten is bouncing on his feet in nervousness and excitement as they gather with everyone else to prepare for the Tribute Parade. "Ohmygosh, I'm so excited! I never thought I'd actually get to be here in person! I really hope they like my design," he frets.

Johnny's stomach is a pit of nerves right now, too, but for different reasons. This is going to be the Capitol's first impression of their tributes— and their first impression of him as a mentor. Ten has put him in a white suit with colorful, blocky squares printed across it to match Yerim's costume. Nothing extravagant, since he didn't want to attract attention away from Yerim, but it was more dressed up than Johnny was used to being after spending three years doing nothing in his house all day.

"They'll like your designs," he responds, trying for a reassuring smile. "I just hope they like Yerim."

They both look over at where Yerim is hanging out near another district's chariot, chatting animatedly with the tributes there. They're ooh-ing and ahh-ing over her costume, carefully reaching out to touch the delicate paper wings. Looks like Johnny won't have to worry too much about Yerim making allies. Nearby, he hears Yukhei's booming laughter, as he tells a story animatedly to some tribute from Eleven.

"The other tributes seem to like her, at least!" says Ten optimistically. "But honestly, I think it's impossible to dislike her! I may be a bit biased, though," he jokes. The two of them are quiet for a bit, watching the hustle and bustle of the parade preparations, before Ten suddenly goes "Oh my gosh!"

"What is it?"

"Over there, at Two's chariot. It's Tigris! She's such a style icon!"

Johnny follows Ten's gaze to where Tigris is standing, surveying the two tributes in front of her with a critical eye. Johnny vaguely knows of Tigris; it's hard not to, considering the fact that she's been around as a stylist for years, longer than Johnny has been alive. She has a very distinctive face too; she'd gotten plastic surgery to look like a tiger, with black tiger stripes running up her face and all across her body. She also has a pair of whiskers, the longest Johnny has ever seen on someone. Johnny wonders idly what would happen if someone were to cut them. She looks the image of the vain, pretentious Capitol citizen with too much money and not enough to do with it.

Meanwhile, Ten is still staring at her, starstruck.

"Do you think I should go talk to her? Will she be annoyed? I'm just some newbie stylist from a no-name family," he says, biting his lip nervously. "Oh gosh, I'm not even wearing something nice."

Johnny shrugs noncommittally. He doesn't really see the appeal, but it's not like it could do much harm. Worst case scenario, talking to Tigris could lead to Ten adopting Tigris' questionable fashion choices and body modifications... which would be a tragedy in Johnny's opinion, but Ten would probably like it. The Capitolites like that kind of stuff, after all, and in the end it's their opinions that matter.

"In my humble opinion, I think you look stunning as is," he says with that easy Capitol grin. "If you want to go talk to her, then why not?"

Ten laughs. "You flatter me." He takes out his phone quickly to check his reflection, before deeming it satisfactory and slipping it back into his pocket. "Okay, I'm going to go talk to her now. Wish me luck!" he exclaims, blowing a kiss at Johnny as he bounces off.

Once he's gone, Johnny turns around to see Yuta right behind him, raising his eyebrows. "Flirting with the stylist, I see?"

Johnny laughs. "Just part of the job description," he says with a wink. "Besides, you know how Capitol people are. Are you having fun sulking in a corner by yourself?"

Yuta rolls his eyes. "More fun than having to talk to people. You ready for the parade?"

Johnny shrugged. "You should be asking Yukhei that, not me. I'm nervous for them, though."

Yuta nodded. "Me too, but I think they'll do okay. They look good." He gestures over to their chariot, where Taeyong is fussing over Yukhei's hair. Most of the tributes have returned to their respective chariots now, since the parade is about to start. "Not much more we can do. We just have to hope those sponsorships roll in."

Johnny nods. "Yeah. I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

They do pretty well in the parade— people are excited to see something from Seven that isn't trees, and Yukhei's bright grin and excited waving catches quite a bit of attention. Yerim doesn't generate as much buzz, but there are still quite a few compliments on her costume and how confident she looks. Johnny spends a few hours after the parade responding to emails from potential sponsors and making a few phone calls to talk Yerim up.

Now it's past midnight and Johnny is having trouble sleeping, mind still running over the day's events. After about an hour of tossing and turning, he gives up, throwing on a jacket and putting on his shoes to maybe take a walk up to the rooftop.

On his way through the common area he comes across Ten and Jungwoo, who are holding hands and giggling. They're stumbling over themselves as they walk, and they nearly topple over when Ten pushes Jungwoo against a wall to make out. Johnny averts his eyes awkwardly and strolls past, but Ten calls his name before he can reach the elevator.

"Hey! Johnny! Hi!" Ten laughs, letting go of Jungwoo’s shirt to wave at him. 

Jungwoo opens his eyes and grins brightly upon spotting Johnny as well. "Johnny, hi!" Jungwoo parrots.

Johnny turns around with a practiced smile. "Hello! Fancy seeing you here."

The two of them giggle and lose their balance, Jungwoo sliding down the wall to sit on the floor and Ten falling backwards onto his butt. They're both clearly dressed for a party— Jungwoo's hair is swept up off his forehead with pink and orange streaks, and he's wearing a pair of high heels to match (one pink, one orange). Ten still has that silver hair, but he's wearing a crown of silver lights as well, and his many earrings shine every time he moves his head. They both look very pretty, albeit very ridiculous.

"We live on the same floor, silly!" Ten exclaims. "Where're you going?"

Johnny shrugs. "Ah, I just felt like checking out the rooftop! There's a garden up there that's quite lovely, I used to go there sometimes when I was a tribute." 

Ten gasps. "Ooh, a garden? That sounds wonderful." He sighs dreamily. "I'd go with you, but, um," he giggles shamelessly, "Woo and I are a little bit busy right now!" He gestures to the two of them and their rumpled appearance, and Jungwoo laughs brightly in response. Ten tries to stand up, but he struggles to balance with the very high heels on his strappy silver sandals and collapses back down to the floor again. Both of them burst out in laughter. 

Johnny sighs internally and strides over to give Ten a hand, pulling him up with ease. He ends up with Ten's face right in front of him, much closer than he expected; the heels Ten is wearing make him taller than usual, causing Johnny to miscalculate. This close, Johnny can see the glittery eyeshadow dusted across his eyelids and the faint little mole under one of his eyes. ( _Not flawless after all_ , Johnny thinks.) His crown of lights has been knocked askew, and Ten laughs as he reaches up to fix it.

"Why, you're such a gentleman! Thank you very much, Johnny Seo."

Johnny smiles graciously, turning to pull Jungwoo up as well. "Not a problem. I'll get going now— I'm sure you two can make it to the door from here?"

The two of them giggle and nod. Johnny holds back a laugh at how ridiculous they look.

"Well, I'll be on my way then," he says, bowing dramatically before backing away. "You two have fun!" He waves, turning to walk to the elevator.

"You could join us, you know!" Ten calls after him. Johnny laughs.

"No, it's all right, I wouldn't want to intrude! Just don't be so loud that you wake up the tributes— they need all the sleep they can get."

With that, he enters the elevator, and presses the button for the roof.

"Oh, you look beautiful!" Ten exclaims. Yerim laughs and twirls in response.

They're currently having Yerim try on a few different dresses in preparation for her interview, to see which one she likes the best. "What do you think, Johnny?" Ten asks.

Johnny nods. "I like the color on this one, I think it stands out and shows her personality."

"Good!" Ten makes a note of it on his tablet. "Does it feel okay? Is it too tight or awkward anywhere?"

"No, it's good," replies Yerim.

"Wonderful! You can go try on the next one, then." Yerim nods and turns to head back to the changing room.

Ten lets out a happy sigh, setting down his tablet and stretching in his seat. "I'm so excited for the next one! It's probably not the best for the interview, but I just wanted to have her try it on anyways, just to see what she looks like!" Ten chatters excitedly. "It's got a really pretty gemstone design on it, with all these different colors."

Johnny nods, trying to look invested in the conversation. "Interesting. Why gemstones?"

Ten shrugs. "I just really like gemstones! I think they're so beautiful but also kind of sharp-looking, you know? And they're very eye-catching. I'm so glad that they give me such a huge budget for the costumes, because gemstones are _so_ expensive."

"Oh, really?" Johnny asks, genuinely curious about this. He'd always thought that budgets and money concerns didn't exist at all in the Capitol, that people could just afford anything their heart desired.

"Yeah, at least the good ones are. There's a lot of fake ones, but they're just not the same, you know? I want things that are authentic,” Ten says seriously. Johnny holds back a snort at the irony of a Capitolite striving for authenticity. "Gemstone mods are really expensive too."

It takes Johnny a moment to understand the Capitol lingo. "Oh, like where people have them embedded in their skin?"

"Yeah, that," Ten says with a nod. "I have this really cool gemstone mod designed that I want to get for myself, but since it's really detailed and big it's going to be super expensive. I've been saving up for it! Wanna see the design?"

"Sure."

Ten taps a few buttons on his tablet before tilting his screen towards Johnny. Although Johnny still thinks it’s a total waste of money, it really is a beautiful and intricate design, utilizing gemstones of many different colors and sizes to create a swirling pattern of a bird taking flight. Even though it's just a still image, it looks dynamic in a way, and Johnny is sure that it'd look even more beautiful once set in actual gemstones. Even though Ten is just a silly Capitolite in most regards, he truly is an excellent designer, and Johnny continues to be surprised by his work.

"Wow, this is amazing. Where are you going to put it?"

"On my back! It'll be a while before that happens, though. Like I said, I still need to save up." As he tilts the tablet back, he accidentally scrolls down, and Johnny catches a glimpse of some calculations and a number circled in red. It's certainly a big number, but surprisingly, it's smaller than some of the sponsor donations he's gotten. He doesn't know whether that means his sponsors are extremely generous or just extremely rich compared to Ten. He has no idea how much Ten makes as a stylist, and no idea how much things usually cost in the Capitol. Ten did mention something about coming from a no-name family, though, so perhaps he's considered lower class among Capitol citizens.

At that moment, Yerim comes back, Ten clapping encouragingly as she walks down the hallway. The dress certainly looks very expensive, with all the gemstones patterned on the skirt to form an angular, sharp design. He spends a few minutes adjusting the dress and fussing over her, before sending her back to the changing room to try on the third dress. He flops back onto the couch and makes a note on his tablet, before setting it down and turning to Johnny.

"You know, I visited your Games arena when I went on vacation," says Ten conversationally.

Johnny suddenly wishes that Yerim would hurry up in the changing room so he doesn't have to have this conversation. Johnny hates how for the Capitolites, the Games is just another topic for small talk, like complaining about the weather.

"Oh? What did you think?"

Ten pauses, thinking. "Well, it was very big. I took a tour by hovercraft, and I don't think I've ever seen that much open space! There were no buildings except the Cornucopia."

Johnny takes a deep breath. This is safe territory, so far. "Yeah, it was pretty big. I never saw the whole thing, since I just kind of stayed in my own area. But if you really want to see open space, you should visit the sea," he says, trying to steer the conversation away from the Games. "When you look out at it, it looks endless. Just waves as far as you can see."

Ten's eyes are wide. "Really? That sounds so cool! It's in District Four, right?"

Johnny nods.

"District Four kids are always so good at swimming," Ten sighs. "I think it's kind of unfair how they design the arena sometimes, like when they decide to send in a flood, because the kids from Four always have the advantage there. You know, everyone thought you were going to die when that Four kid threw you into the river." Johnny stiffens slightly, but Ten doesn't notice, continuing to talk. "I swear, your body looked like a rag doll! And the current was so strong, I don't know how many rocks you must've hit as you got carried downstream. You looked in really bad shape when you finally washed up."

Johnny smiles and nods. "It was rough. I was lucky that I had many generous sponsors to send me a healing salve!" He says, the rehearsed answer coming out automatically.

Ten shakes his head. "Luck doesn't even begin to cover it! Even with the sponsors, you were half dead already. I think you must’ve been superhuman or something, to survive that," he says admiringly, turning to look at Johnny. Johnny averts his gaze.

"I'm not superhuman, Ten. I'm just human." He sighs, uncomfortable with Ten's idolization of him. He stands up, feeling Ten's eyes on him even though his back is turned. "I'm going to go knock on Yerim's door, see what's taking her so long."

"Okay," Ten responds. Johnny walks down the hallway and disappears around the corner without another word.

Johnny wakes up with a start at the sound of yelling, nearly tumbling off the couch in his haste to stand up. He relaxes slightly when he realizes he's just in their floor's common room, but quickly realizes something is wrong when he hears the sounds of Taeyong crying and sees Yuta pacing back and forth, eyes shiny and a scowl on his face.

"Shit!" Yuta shouts, kicking the coffee table in front of them. It screeches as it moves across the tile, a glass toppling over and spilling wine across the polished brown surface. "Those bastards! They could've fucking saved him!"

Johnny looks at the three TV monitors set up in front of them: one with the official live broadcast, one with Yerim's live feed, and one with Yukhei's. His stomach drops as he realizes that Yukhei's screen has gone dark.

"Shit, what happened?" Johnny asks.

"Gamemakers decided to send a bunch of fireballs." Yuta spits out, still fuming. "One of Yukhei's allies got trapped under a fallen tree. He went back to go save his ally, and they ran from the fire for a while, but then when Yukhei got his foot trapped in a net the fucking bastard just left him without a second thought. It would've taken maybe five seconds to cut him free!"

Taeyong is still crying, and Jungwoo and Ten are doing their best to comfort him. The three of them collectively flinch when Yuta throws himself back onto the couch in a huff. He shakes his head. "Knew that boy was too goddamn trusting. Fucking... friendly oversized beagle." He grabs the wine bottle from the table and chugs half of it down, wiping his mouth when he's done. Jungwoo, Ten, and Taeyong look vaguely disgusted by this, but stay silent.

"Fuck," Johnny says. He has no words of comfort to offer. He feels empty. Even though he didn't know Yukhei that well, he was one of the best people Johnny knew, always energetic and eager to help.

Yuta breathes in and out, trying to calm himself down. "I guess I can't blame those cowards too much," he says finally. "They're just trying to survive. Not like they actually stabbed him in the back."

Johnny nods in agreement. Yuta sighs, the anger bleeding away as he slouches into the couch.

"Anyways, sorry to wake you," Yuta says. "It's still early in the morning. You can catch a couple more hours until we trade off."

Johnny shakes his head. "No, I’m awake now anyways." His heart is still beating too fast from the sudden wake-up call, and he's anxious to see how Yerim is doing. To just watch her for a while, reassure himself that she's still alive. "Besides, you look like you need to crash. Aren't you gonna head home soon?"

Yuta shakes his head. "No, I'll wait for you. The train ride is too boring by myself."

Johnny nods, and turns back to watch the screens. On the main screen, the fire is still raging on, with the camera cutting between the two groups it is chasing: the remaining tributes from Yukhei's group and the Career pack. Thankfully, Yerim is in a rocky cave area of some kind, which means she's probably far from the fires. She and her two allies are trying to roast bugs to eat. He watches the fire flicker, tries to burn that warmth behind his eyelids. A cannon goes off; one of Yukhei's former allies has collapsed from exhaustion and fallen into the flames, the camera focusing in on her exhausted, delirious face as the flames burn away at her hair. She had beautiful hair, Johnny remembers. She'd cut it short before entering the arena, but it used to be long and silky, and her stylist had woven wires into it to represent District Three. 

There are nine tributes left, now: two from Yukhei's group, four Careers, and the three in Yerim's group. Knowing the Gamemakers, the fire is probably herding the Careers and the other two closer together. When they meet, it'll probably go down to seven.

A day later, Johnny's prediction proves partially correct. The two groups run into each other, and a battle ensues. The non-Careers fight more fiercely than Johnny had thought they would, and manage to take out a Career before they both get gutted through with swords.

Being in a group is risky, now. Yerim and her allies agree to split up peacefully, and make a pact not to attack each other unless all the Careers are gone. 

A couple days pass, and Johnny sleeps fitfully. Two cannons boom. One Career, one not. Four people left. Johnny feels his hope rising, and quashes it down. Taeyong left to go home, so it's just him and Yuta and Ten and Jungwoo, constantly on the edge of their seats. His anxiety rises as he sees the terrain around Yerim become more and more similar to where the Careers seem to be camping.

In the end, it's over quickly, which Johnny is grateful for. She manages to hit both of them with arrows, but neither of them die immediately; although Yerim has good aim, she's not strong enough to shoot her arrows deep enough to hit vital organs. Once they know she's there, a well-thrown knife is enough to take her out. Ten bursts into tears when the cannon goes off. Johnny sighs, heart beating jackrabbit-fast in his throat, as if working doubletime to make up for the heart that just stopped.

Johnny can't sleep that night, but that's nothing new. He's never been able to sleep well since the Games. Instead of trying to sleep, he heads to the common room and stands in front of the big glass window, staring out at all the blinking city lights. Wonders about all those ignorant Capitolites going about their day, unaware of how lucky they are to have a heart that beats in their chest. Thinks about that line from the history videos he was shown every year in school, about how the Capitol is the beating heart of Panem, the center of it all, keeping the Districts alive. Because as much as he hates to admit it, it's true: the Districts can't survive without the resources from the Capitol. They're all too specialized and cut off from each other, supply lines only intersecting at the Capitol.

A door slides open somewhere behind him, and Johnny turns around, expecting to see Yuta. He's surprised when he sees Ten instead, wearing plain, soft sleep clothes with a fluffy blanket wrapped around him.

"Oh, hello." Johnny attempts a small smile, too tired for anything more dramatic. "What are you doing up?" Ten shrugs, taking a few steps closer to Johnny so that he's illuminated by the lights from the window. Like this, with bare feet and no makeup and dressed in neutral clothes, he looks almost normal. Like just another person, someone Johnny might've run into when he still went to school, someone he might've shared his lunch with. The only thing that gives him away is his silver hair, shining ethereally in the bright city lights.

"Just couldn't sleep." Ten says quietly. Johnny nods in understanding.

"Me too." Ten comes over to stand next to Johnny for a bit, joining him in watching the lights outside.

"I just keep thinking about Yerim, you know?" Ten blurts out. "Like, I knew, realistically, that she might not make it, but I really believed she would." He starts to cry again, little hiccuping sounds, the tears glistening in the light as they slide down his cheeks. "And— and— I had so many dresses prepared for her! I'd already made half the outfits for her Victory Tour! And she's never going to get to wear them!" He buries his face in his hands, crying harder now. "I had such a nice red dress for her, and I'm never going to get to see her wear it... I just have a closet full of useless dresses now." He sniffs, wiping at his eyes.

Johnny has no idea how to respond. He's surprised that Ten hasn't moved on by now, considering how most Capitolite tears are like a flash storm: pouring one moment and gone the next. The fact that Ten can't sleep shows that he must still be upset over it, and Johnny feels the need to comfort him. However, he's also really annoyed that Ten won't shut up about the dresses. He's starting to think Ten cares more about the dresses than about Yerim.

Ten's next sentence revises that opinion, though.

"I just... I've never known anyone who died, you know?" He says softly, plopping down on the floor and staring down at his knees. "I guess I never realized that once someone's dead, they're really gone. And that you're never going to be able to talk to them again."

Johnny swallows around the lump in his throat and nods, sitting down beside Ten. "Yeah. It's hard. You feel like you miss them all the time."

"That's it!" Ten exclaims. "That's exactly what it feels like. I miss her, and I can't do anything about it." He sighs, wiggling his toes in front of him. "I never missed someone for a long time before. When I miss someone I just call them, and they're there. But I can't call Yerim to talk to her." He starts crying again. "I should've talked to her more in the Launch Room! Or— or— I don't know, made better dresses so she could get more sponsors!"

Johnny sighs, reaching over to pat Ten's shoulder. "There's nothing you can do about it now. You did the best you could."

Ten turns towards Johnny, hugging his knees. "I just feel like I should've done more."

Johnny shakes his head. "Your designs are stunning, Ten," he says sincerely, looking Ten in the eyes. "Yerim was lucky to have you as a stylist. So many sponsors left compliments about the crane dress. You're part of the reason she was able to survive as long as she did, okay?"

Ten nods shakily, starting to calm down. 

"Okay. Okay. I just... wish she was here."

Johnny sighs. "I know, Ten. So do I."

"... Can I have a hug?"

It’d be rude of him to refuse, and the Johnny Seo of the Capitol is anything but rude. So he nods, opening his arms and allowing Ten to tuck his face in the curve of Johnny's neck. Johnny forces himself to breathe and reminds himself that Ten's teeth are too blunt to rip into his skin, that there is no danger in the way Ten's arms snake around his waist. Besides, he's too physically and emotionally exhausted to stay wary, so he relaxes tentatively, waiting as Ten's hiccups eventually subside.

"Thanks, Johnny." Ten says, pulling back and giving him a shaky smile. Even though he's a bit of an ugly crier, with red eyes and a runny nose, his smile makes Johnny's heart lift in his chest. He can't help but smile back a little.

"You're welcome," Johnny replies. He makes to stand up, Ten following him as he does, so that the two of them are standing facing each other.

"You're going back tomorrow, right?"

Johnny nods. "Yeah, Yuta and I are leaving early morning. We'll probably be gone before you get up."

"Okay. Have a nice trip."

"Thanks," Johnny says. He tilts his head towards Ten's door. "Go try to get some sleep."

"Okay. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Ten." 

There’s strawberry ice cream in front of him, but Johnny can’t bring himself to eat it. Strawberry ice cream was one of Yerim’s favorites.

“So, how was mentoring?”

Johnny glances over at Yuta to see if he plans on answering first. It’s been a few days since they got back home, and the two of them are currently eating dinner with Taeyeon and Shindong, their previous mentors.

Yuta shrugs. “It was awful, but I didn’t expect anything different.”

Johnny nods in agreement. “Yeah, the Games are already terrifying enough, but mentoring someone in the Games and having to watch them is a whole different kind of terrifying.”

Being in the Games himself was constant adrenaline and moving on instinct, relying on his basic will to survive. It was like a rollercoaster, up and down and sideways and just hanging on tight so he wouldn’t get thrown off.

Watching the Games when he’s a mentor is more like a drawn-out, impending sense of doom. Even if there are highs and lows, he always feels like things are heading steadily downhill.

“Yes, being a mentor is very mentally taxing,” Taeyeon says with a sigh. “When you think about it, it’s also kind of selfish. The fact of the matter is, no matter what happens, only one person is going to walk out of the Games alive. The tributes from other districts deserve to live just as much as ours do, but of course we’ll always prioritize bringing our kids home because we want to spare ourselves the pain of losing someone we are attached to.”

The strawberry ice cream is starting to melt. Johnny thinks that all of them must be selfish, then, to win the Games at the expense of twenty three other lives.

“Still,” says Taeyeon, leveling them with a firm look. “That doesn’t mean you can just give up on your tributes. Even if it feels like you’re being selfish, your tributes deserve to have a good mentor. The odds are never in our favor, but you can help them increase their chances. You need to help them like we helped you.”

Johnny and Yuta nod solemnly.

“Of course, we’ll still be here if you ever need help,” Shindong adds. “You’re always welcome to come talk to us, or seek out advice. We’re still your mentors, after all.”

“Yes,” Taeyeon agrees. “Just because your Games are over doesn’t mean we’ve stopped.”

Johnny goes back to his life in Seven of alternating between doing nothing, playing piano, and working out with Yuta. Occasionally, he'll hang out with some of his old friends, where he treats them to good food and they all gather at his house to lie on his nice carpet and talk about nonsense like work at the paper mills (boring) or this cool tree with a twisted trunk they found (slightly less boring).

On his birthday, he's surprised when he gets a few packages at the door. The year he'd won the Games, his birthday was right after the Victory Tour, and he'd been flooded with presents from adoring Capitol fans. However, by the time the next year had rolled around, they'd all forgotten about him, probably directing their attention at the next round of tributes. He figures that coming back as a mentor this year reminded some of them of his existence.

There's five packages in total: one small, three medium sized, and one large one. He goes in size order, starting from the smallest. He opens it to find a small gold watch, simple and elegant. It's actually quite nice, considering all the ridiculous and useless presents he has received in the past. He thinks he'd actually wear it, if he were the type of person who liked wearing watches. Maybe he'll give it to Yuta; Yuta has taken to wearing a similar-looking watch recently.

The three medium-sized packages are a floppy purple hat, a body pillow of himself, and a couple bottles of nice champagne. He throws the hat into his collection of Ridiculous Capitol Things, puts the bottles of champagne in the fridge, and stuffs the body pillow deep into a random closet so that it never sees the light of day.

The last package has a card taped onto it, which he opens warily, just in case a shower of glitter falls out of it or something. He sighs in relief when he pulls it out to find it's just a regular card, with some neat geometric design printed on the front. It reads "Happy Birthday! You deserve to look good on your special day. xoxo, Ten".

Johnny is surprised, since he hasn't kept in touch with Ten since he left the Capitol. He opens the package and finds the suit he wore to the Tribute Parade, neatly ironed and folded in a garment bag. He shrugs and hangs it up in his closet, before going to recycle the boxes. However, he finds another garment bag in the bottom of the box, and unzips it to see what's inside.

He hasn't seen this outfit before. It's another suit: the body of the jacket and the pants are a midnight blue, and there's a silk shirt inside that's a soft white color. The jacket is partially covered in tiny rectangles of different reflective materials, almost like a mosaic; most of them are made out of regular mirror material, but there are some neon reflective patches as well, like the kind that Johnny sees some of the night shift forest workers wear. He doesn't realize what it's supposed to be until he flips it over and sees the image laid out clearly on the back of the jacket.

It's an outline of the Capitol city lights, the view from their 7th floor window at the Training Center. Johnny runs his fingers over the shiny little rectangles and wonders when Ten had time to design it. Imagines Ten sitting in front of the window with his tablet after Johnny went to bed, sketching out the skyline, with soft, unstyled hair and a concentrated pout on his face. How much did this suit cost to make? He hopes it wasn't too expensive.

He tries it on. It fits perfectly, and he admires the design in the mirror for a bit, the way the windows wink at him as he moves around. Suddenly, there's a knock at his bedroom door. "Youngho? Are you in here?"

"Yeah, come in!" 

His mom pokes her head into the room. "I made some seaweed soup for your birthday!" she says, before she notices what he's wearing and gasps. "What are you so dressed up for? Is the Capitol making you do something?" she exclaims worriedly.

Johnny shakes his head and smiles reassuringly. "No, no, don't worry. I was just trying this on, someone sent it to me for my birthday."

"Ah, I see! Well, you look very handsome in it," she declares, striding over to tug on the suit and straighten it up. "And the design is so pretty! You deserve to have nice things on your birthday, and I think this is one of the nicest things one of those Capitol people have ever sent you."

Johnny nods in agreement. "Yeah, my stylist is the one who sent it."

Johnny's mom looks confused. "You mean the stylist from your Games? I didn't know you kept in touch with her."

"No, not her, the one from this year. I guess he's technically Yerim's stylist, but he made me some outfits too so we could look unified for public appearances," he explains, gesturing towards the other suit hanging in his closet.

"Oh, I see! Well then, you should get him something for his birthday too. Although I have no idea what a Capitolite like him could possibly want," she says with a roll of her eyes. "But you know how they are. Besides, it can't hurt to be polite." She gives his shoulders one final pat, before turning to leave. "The soup is going to get cold soon! Make sure you change out of that suit before you come downstairs so you don't get it dirty."

"Okay," Johnny responds. He changes out of the suit and hangs it up in his closet, idly wondering what he could even get someone like Ten. With a start, he realizes he doesn't even know when Ten's birthday is.

He decides to think about it later. He should go downstairs before his soup gets cold.

About a month before Reaping Day, Johnny gets an invitation in the mail.

It's made of high quality paper, with an actual seal stamped on it. In curling, fancy script, it reads, "Felicity Lee cordially invites you to her 29th birthday gala."

Johnny recognizes the name— she'd been one of their most generous sponsors last year. Still, he's surprised, since he's never received an invitation to a Capitolite event before, even when he was a fresh victor.

He heads over to Yuta's house to ask about it. Yuta shrugs and tells him he's never received anything like it.

"I think the Capitolites are scared of me, though," says Yuta with a snort. "Like, of course they like me, but I made it pretty clear in my Games that I'm not the play nice, socializing type. But you're Mr. Gentleman. To them, you're the perfect party entertainment."

Johnny laughs wryly. "We're all entertainment." He sighs, sinking back into the couch resignedly. "I should go, shouldn't I?"

Yuta shrugs. "I don't think it'll matter too much if you don't. It's not like this is an order from the Capitol, it's just some stupid Capitolite. This lady probably invited more people than she can remember." 

"But what if she realizes I didn't come, and withdraws her sponsorship next year? It's a lot of money."

"Well, there's no harm in going, right? Might as well just show up, hang around, eat some food. Maybe you could even get some more sponsors. Rich people always flock together." He says with a scoff.

Johnny nods slowly. "You're right. I could network. Give our tributes a better chance this year."

Yuta sighs. "Yeah. Gotta hustle while we're still young and not jaded enough to stop giving a shit." They're silent for a few moments, both of them dreading the upcoming Games. "When do you think it'll happen? When we stop giving a shit?"

Johnny shrugs. "No clue, man." He traces the pattern of the wallpapers, listens to the mechanical hum of the air conditioning. "Do you want it to?"

Yuta groans. "I don't know. I don't think so, but it's not like we can decide when to stop giving a shit." He trails off into thought for a few moments, and when he speaks again, it's quiet. "It'd sure make things a hell of a lot easier, though."

Johnny isn't so sure about that. He thinks that if he stopped giving a shit, stopped being able to help his tributes, he'd have a hard time justifying why he deserves to be alive.

The gala is not as awful as Johnny expected. He dresses up, makes his way to the hotel it's being held at (top floor, of course), and fills his stomach with bite-sized morsels of food as he laughs and holds conversations and accepts compliments about his Games. ("I love how you and your tribute had matching outfits, it was so cute!" the host exclaims. "Especially because most of the other mentors didn't bother to put on anything decent at all, ugh. They were such an eyesore!")

He's feeling pretty satisfied with himself, actually— he's gotten a few sponsors locked in for the upcoming Games already, so whoever ends up being his tribute will still have a decent chance even if they can't charm the cameras. He's taking the elevator back down to the lobby when it stops at the fifth floor. The doors slide open, and Ten bounces in with Taeyong, the two of them chattering excitedly to each other. They look like they've been partying again, a much more informal type of party than the one Johnny just attended, and both of their hair colors are different from the last time Johnny saw them. Ten's hair is now a bright purple, and Taeyong's hair is hot pink. They seem to notice him at the same time, because they let out simultaneous gasps.

"Johnny!" Ten exclaims. "What are you doing here? Gosh, I haven't seen you in so long!"

Johnny laughs good-naturedly. "Ah, I was just at a birthday party. You?"

"Oh, just some party," laughs Taeyong dismissively, waving a hand in the air. "You know how they go!"

"Your party seems a lot fancier than ours though," Ten comments. "What with the dress code and all. Where's your suit from?"

The elevator opens, and the three of them step out into the lobby. "Ah, it's just one of the suits from my Victory Tour." The suit in question is fairly simple, a dark forest green with a nice leaf design embroidered on the chest. It's one of the nicer things his former stylist had given him, once he'd become a victor and she decided to actually put some effort in his outfits.

Ten nods. "I see, I see." The three of them have reached the front of the hotel, and step out into the warm summer air. "Where are you heading from here?"

"Catching the train back to District Seven," Johnny says, gesturing in the direction of the train station.

"This late?" Taeyong asks worriedly. "Aren't you tired?"

"No, I'll just sleep on the train, don't worry." Johnny says with a polite smile. "I should really get going, though. Don't want to miss it!"

"Okay," Ten responds. "We'll see you in a couple weeks!"

Johnny smiles. "Looking forward to it," he says with a wink.

This year's tributes are named Mark and Yeji. On the train ride to the Capitol, Mark imprints onto Johnny like a baby duckling, so the question of who’s mentoring who gets decided pretty quickly.

When they arrive at the Capitol, they go through all the usual introductions. Mark looks fascinated at Ten and Taeyong's hair colors and fashion choices, asking them questions and marveling at how soft or shiny or sparkly all the fabrics are. Yeji sits quietly and listens to everything around her with wide eyes, looking like she's recording all the information just in case she might need it.

Ten absolutely adores Mark. Mark likes him a lot, too— constantly calls Ten cute and laughs loudly at the jokes he makes. For the parade, Ten dresses Mark in a white shirt with blue stripes across it like notebook paper, a denim jacket, and white skinny jeans. The denim jacket has several colorful square patches on it, the size of sticky notes, and on each of these "sticky notes" is written a cute message, the kind you might write to your crush when you're bored in school and passing notes. He even gives Mark a paper dispenser gun, which contains a bunch of sticky notes with similar messages. Mark shoots these at the crowd as the chariot passes by, and the crowd goes wild.

_wanna go to the movies w/ me? circle: yes or no_

Nevermind the fact that the only movies ever playing in Seven are reruns of the Games or silly TV shows full of Capitol propaganda, neither of which is very romantic. He supposes the latter could be enjoyable though, if one liked making fun of the Capitol.

Johnny is up late that night responding to sponsor messages; the Capitolites had fallen all over themselves for Mark’s schoolboy look. When he's finally done responding to them all, he stretches out his back and decides to go up to the roof to take a break.

The smell of the rooftop garden soothes him somewhat, even though it’s a lot more flowery and sweet than the smell of earth and pine needles back home. It’s a windy night, and if he closes his eyes and imagines hard enough, he can almost pretend that the tinkling of the chimes strung on the trees are mockingjay calls. His eyes are still closed when he feels the vibration of light footsteps on the ground near him, approaching quickly. He doesn’t have time to open his eyes and turn around before someone covers his eyes and shouts "Boo!" right next to his ear.

In a flash, he grabs the person's wrist and swings them around onto the ground, a knee pressing into their chest and a hand putting pressure on their throat. The person gasps as they try to breathe, too stunned and winded to struggle, their face—

Johnny scrambles up and backs away, hands out in front of him. "Fuck, I'm so sorry," he says, as he watches Ten struggle to catch his breath from where he's still lying on the cold concrete pathway. "Fuck, I'm so sorry, I wasn't thinking, you just caught me off guard..." He glances over at the camera embedded in the fencepost, red light blinking in the darkness. "Fuck, Ten, are you okay?"

Ten doesn't respond, gazing up at the starless sky and still trying to catch his breath. He seems to zone out for several moments, before he finally comes to his senses again and moves. His bright red shirt seems to flash a warning as he groans and rolls over onto his side, curling up into a fetal position. "Oh jeez. Ow. That fucking hurts," he says, hands going up to clutch his head.

"I am so, so, sorry," Johnny apologizes profusely, no longer bothering to keep up his Capitol facade. With the stunt he just pulled, he doesn’t see much point in pretending. "I just— reacted on instinct. I didn't mean to hurt you, Ten, I swear. Shit, I, uh—" His hands flounder uselessly around him. He wants to go over to check how Ten is doing, but he's not sure how Ten will react. "Do you need anything? Water? Bandages? Do you have a concussion? I—"

"Ugh, just stop talking," Ten groans. "... Some water would be nice though."

"Okay," Johnny says, casting about for a source of water. There’s a drinking fountain in the corner of the garden, but he doesn’t have anything to carry the water in. "There’s a fountain over there, if you can get up."

"Help me up?" Ten asks, raising his arms in a request to be pulled up. Johnny complies, helping Ten over to the fountain and watching as he drinks in hesitant sips. He coughs a bit after he’s done, slumping back down to the floor.

"Are you okay?" Johnny asks again.

Ten sighs. "Gosh, I don't know. I still feel weird. My chest hurts." He shakes his wrist out gingerly. "Also, I think my wrist is bruised. You have a really strong grip."

Johnny winces. "Sorry." He pauses for a moment, hesitating, before asking, "Are you mad at me?"

Ten shakes his head hollowly. "No. I think I'm still in shock."

"Well, I hope you don't decide to be mad at me later," Johnny sighs out. "Because if you decide to press charges or something, I'll be in big trouble."

"Why would you get in trouble? It's not like you have evidence. Besides, you're a victor, the Capitol loves you. I'm just some stylist." He shrugs, seeming strangely matter-of-fact about it.

Johnny barks out an incredulous laugh. "The Capitol loved me for a year then forgot about me, Ten. And also, there's a camera here, so you have evidence on your side."

That seems to break Ten out of his scarily calm state. "There's a camera here?"

Johnny nods. "Yeah? There's cameras all around this building."

"What?!" Ten exclaims, jumping up. "Everywhere?"

"Shh! Calm down! We have to talk quietly, there are microphones too, but the chimes are so loud that if we whisper they shouldn’t be able to pick anything up."

Ten spins in a circle to look for the camera, but is unable to spot it until Johnny subtly points it out to him. When he finds it, he stares at it in disbelief for a few seconds. "Oh my gosh, I had no idea," he says softly.

"Don't stare at it too long, otherwise they might think it's suspicious."

Ten looks alarmed, but nods and sits himself down on a garden bench. Johnny follows, sitting on a bench directly across from Ten so they can hear each other.

It's quiet for several moments, Ten staring down at his hands and processing what just happened. Johnny waits for him to speak.

"I guess—" Ten begins hesitantly, "I still don't understand. You're a celebrity. You get invited to these fancy, dress-coded parties, you live in a big, fancy house, everyone knows who you are. Don't you have, like, immunity?" Johnny shakes his head, but Ten continues to ramble on. "Like GlitterKit, I don't know if you know her, but she's this really famous makeup guru from the Flickerman family. She and her brother run a prostitution ring for people who are in debt. Which isn't a big deal by itself, since joining the ring is better than becoming an Avox or a Peacekeeper, and like, theoretically you can leave the ring if you pay off all your debts. But sometimes they just snatch anyone who looks pretty off the streets, even if you don't owe anything, and drag you in. But if you get in that way you don't get, like, officially registered with the government, since you're not there to pay off a debt, so then you don't ever get to leave because officially you're not part of the ring, you know?"

Johnny nods.

"And, like, obviously that's illegal, and everyone knows it happens, but nobody does anything about it because they’re the Flickermans. So like, even with the camera footage, I don't think people would care. You're still a celebrity."

Johnny shakes his head. "Maybe to you, I am. But to the government? I'm not a celebrity, Ten. I'm not superhuman either. I'm just some guy from District Seven who killed a bunch of people, and the Capitol is always going to put its citizens ahead of some outsider."

Ten mulls it over for a second. "I guess..." he says slowly. "But you're more than just a guy who killed people, Johnny." He lets out an incredulous laugh after he says it, hand coming up to massage at his throat where Johnny had choked him. "Though I guess you really have killed people, huh?"

Johnny sighs, sinking down into the couch. "Yeah. You know that, though. You saw my Games."

Ten nods. "Yeah, but I guess they never really seemed real, you know?" He starts to giggle, a little hysterical. "Like, there was this conspiracy theory floating around a while back about how the Games are actually scripted, and that they were started to save the TV industry after the rebellion. Since the Games just seem so crazy, you know? And there's always so much money poured into it, and so much merch, and all the other reality TV shows around here suck anyways. And nobody ever visits the Districts, so for all we know they could just not exist!" He laughs to himself, shaking his head. "And I mean, I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but the Games didn't really start feeling real until I met you and Yuta and everyone else, and I thought, gee, if you all are paid actors you must be really good to stay in character all the time like that!"

Johnny laughs. Little does Ten know, they really are staying in character all the time. He guesses they are paid actors, in a way: they're always acting in the Capitol, and they get paid by the government every year.

"It was cool to meet you guys in person and realize that who you were on TV is like how you are in real life, you know? But I get to see more sides of you like this. Like, how you flirt with everyone all the time, but you also get really serious when helping your tribute, and how you helped me when I was really sad. And those are kind of all parts of your personality, so it's like... like on screen, you're two-dimensional, you know? And it's an accurate representation of what you're like on one side. But after meeting you, I get to see some of the other sides."

Johnny is surprised by Ten's perceptiveness, but also a little thrown off by Ten's description of his personality: multiple sides of one person. Is his Capitol persona part of his personality? It's certainly very ingrained into him: the set of his shoulders, the way his face muscles pull up into that polite smile, the habitual winks. But is it an accurate representation of him? Is it a part of who he is? Johnny's instinctual reaction is to say no, to forcefully reject anything that drips in falseness and belongs to the Capitol. But maybe that facade is a part of who he is. Maybe part of him belongs to the Capitol, whether he likes it or not.

"So I guess, after realizing that the you from the interviews is really you, it only makes sense that the you from the Games is also you." He says ruefully. He takes a deep breath. "Gosh, my chest still hurts. Guess you had to be good at things like that to win, though, right?"

Johnny nods. "Sorry, again. I really didn't mean to. And like, if you don't want to be around me anymore, or if you want to quit, that's okay."

Ten laughs. "Such a gentleman, as always," he says with a mock swoon. "But no, it's okay. I'm not going anywhere. I'm way too attached to our darling little Markles! Gotta make sure he looks his best, so he can win the hearts of all of Panem. Besides," he scoffs, "what kind of person would I be if I let you all go back to being trees?" He looks almost normal again, smiling as he stands up and runs a hand through his hair. "Well, gosh, that was certainly a shock. What a day it's been!"

Johnny gives a tentative smile. "What a day, indeed."

Even after that whole fiasco, Ten continues to act the same around Johnny, all dramatic, lovely words and cheek kisses and giggles. It's almost as if Ten has forgotten about the conversation, or has already moved past it in that carefree, flippant Capitol way. 

The two of them are waiting for Mark to try on interview outfits when a ping from Ten's tablet sounds. He lets out a delighted gasp when he sees the notification.

"What happened?" Johnny asks.

Ten is practically vibrating in his seat with excitement. "I just got a really big commission! Which means that after I finish it, I'll be able to afford that gemstone mod!"

"Wow, really? That's great!" Johnny exclaims politely. It comes out more genuine than he intends it to; although he still thinks the gemstones are a huge waste of money, a part of him really is happy for Ten.

"What's great?" asks Mark, having just come back from the changing room.

"Markles!" Ten exclaims, jumping up and running over to Mark. Mark makes an "oof" sound as Ten tries to pick him up and spin him around. He laughs in surprise as Ten releases him. 

"What was that for? Why're you so excited?"

"I'm gonna be able to afford a really cool gemstone mod soon! Wanna see the design?" 

"Of course!" Mark gasps when he sees the design, eyes wide. "Woah, Ten, this is so cool! Like, seriously! It's so pretty!"

Ten beams. "Thanks, Mark!" He pulls back a little, and looks over Mark's outfit. "How do you feel about this outfit, though?"

"It's good! I like it better than the other one."

"Good! I like this one too." Ten declares, making a note on his tablet. He reaches up to pinch Mark's ear, and Mark swats his hand away with an embarrassed laugh. "Now go try on the third one," Ten orders.

Mark salutes. "Yes, sir," he says jokingly. Ten laughs, slapping his butt as he walks away.

"Johnny," says Mark hesitantly. "Was it hard, killing people during the Games?"

They're in Johnny's bedroom, both sprawled out on his bed, with only a couple days left until the Games begin. Johnny sighs, turning to look at Mark.

"Of course it was hard. One of the hardest fucking things I've ever done." When he closes his eyes, he can still see their faces lit up in the sky. One face in particular he sees more than the others, his smile and his dimples and how soft his hair always looked. While he remembers the other tributes in the desaturated blues of the hologram projections, he always remembers Jaehyun in full color, the image of him still sharp in his mind.

Mark sighs. "Any advice?"

Johnny shakes his head. "Advice is useless for that. You just kind of have to do it. Be desperate enough to survive." He pauses, thrown back into that Games mindset, that kill-or-be-killed. The way his vision narrowed in, the way he startled at every noise, the way it felt to stab a knife into someone's gut. "Well, just one piece of advice, maybe: don't be a fucking idiot like me, and stay the hell away from Careers."

Mark nods solemnly. "Got it. Wasn't planning on going anywhere near them, anyways." He's quiet for a few moments, the two of them just lying there, breathing. "Sorry if this is like, an intrusive question, you don't have to answer it, but I was just wondering— did you actually like Jung Jaehyun? Or were you just trying to play him to get a Career on your side? I remember watching your Games, back at home, and no one could tell. People were placing bets over it."

Johnny sighs. He had a feeling someone would ask at some point, but that doesn't make him any more prepared for it. "I liked him. I like to believe that he liked me too, but you know how Careers are."

"But how can you believe he liked you when he tried to kill you?"

Johnny shrugs. "It's the Hunger Games, Mark. Everyone's just trying to stay alive. And the Careers especially are trained to kill. A couple weeks of talking and making out can't stack up against the honor of winning for your District." He huffs out a hollow laugh. "And you could ask the same question of me. After all, I'm the one who killed him."

"Well, yeah," Mark splutters. "But that's different! That was self-defense! He attacked first!"

"But I'm still the one who killed him. I made that choice, Mark." He sighs, shaking his head. "Just don't let your guard down and don't get too attached to people and you'll be okay."

Mark nods solemnly, shuffles around a little on the mattress. "I still don't want to kill anyone, though."

Johnny wonders why all the nicest people get reaped. They're the easiest to get attached to, and the most likely to die. His heart thuds dully against his chest at the thought of a world without Mark's full-bodied laugh, without his bright eyes and rambling and curiosity.

"Just try to think of it as self-defense. And do it from a distance, if possible. You can throw pretty well, right?"

"Yeah, I guess."

Johnny sits up and tugs on Mark's arm so that he sits up too. "Look, Mark. No one is going to think less of you for killing people during the Games." He says firmly. "And if you win, you can get your dad that surgery he needs. Okay?"

Mark closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. "Okay."

"Good." He pats Mark's shoulder with a wry smile. "Now knock 'em dead."

It's a hot, muggy day in the Arena when Mark has his first major brush with death.

Well, most of the days in the Arena so far have been hot and muggy. The arena this year is a swampland, with a dense canopy of trees that block the sunlight and cast strange shadows on the ground below. Navigation means either trekking through thigh-deep mud, or climbing the trees to test your luck among the branches up top. Most of the branches are fairly sturdy, the trees having grown together so that their branches are intertwined to create convenient pathways. You just have to be careful not to lose your balance.

Mark and Yeji have teamed up, since they work well together. This arena gives them an advantage because they’re both from Seven; thus, they’ve been spending most of their time on the upper branches, to avoid the majority of the tributes.

Unfortunately, the Gamemakers don't like that. They'd been able to stay relatively peaceful for the first few days, as things calmed down from the aftermath of the bloodbath, but on the fifth day, the tracker jackers hit. A swarm of them flying out of nowhere, heading straight towards Mark and Yeji.

"Crap!" yells Mark. He and Yeji begin to run, eyes laser-focused on where they're putting their feet so they don't fall. He can't even chance a glance backwards, because otherwise he'll miss a step on the narrow walkway created by the branches.

"I don't think we can outrun them!" yells Yeji ahead of him. "I think we should jump into the swamp!"

Mark's heart hammers in his chest. He focuses on his feet, and pointedly does not look at the network of branches and leaves and empty air just beyond his feet. "It's a long way down, though!"

"We don't have a better choice!"

The buzzing gets louder. He swears he can feel them behind him, inches away from his neck.

"Okay."

"Okay? Let's go!" Yeji jumps, no hesitation, feet first and eyes open and hoping she won't crash into any branches on the way down.

Mark watches her disappear under the cover of leaves. "Okay," he repeats, and gets ready to jump. He feels a stinger pierce into his neck the moment he jumps off. Several more join it while he's midair, and he falls in a graceless fumble, screaming in pain as air whooshes in his ears and he hears the buzzing grow further and further away.

He lands with a hard slap on the viscous surface of the mud, before his body slowly begins to sink. The hallucinations are starting. He's being suffocated. The oozing feeling around him is because he's in a giant vat of dough, and he's about to be baked into a bread. He's in danger. 

"Mark!" Yeji is wading towards him as fast as she can. She drags him upright so his head isn't sinking into the mud, and gasps when he sees the huge stings on his neck. "Oh fuck, Mark..." 

She looks into the camera, tries to look as pretty and pathetic as possible with her face and hair covered in mud, and asks, "Could we have some ointment? Please?"

Yuta agrees to pool a quarter of his money with Johnny's, but they find that they still don't have enough.

"Well, he'll last a couple days until he dies. We could try to scrounge up some more money before then."

Johnny nods, scrolling through his list of contacts. "Yeah. I'll make some phone calls tonight."

"Me too. Mark's a good kid, and it'll be easier for Yeji if they're able to stick together."

The ointment is expensive, though, twice the amount of money they currently have. Unless someone decides to be very generous, Mark's chances of survival are not very high. Still, Johnny knows he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't at least try.

Ten is surprisingly quiet, huddled up with Taeyong and Jungwoo on the couch. The three of them are wrapped in a large fuzzy blanket, which Ten is clutching as he watches the screen. Yeji has managed to drag Mark to somewhere relatively safe, but Mark is still crying out loudly and hallucinating, which could attract attention to them and put them in danger. Since the majority of the arena looks similar, it's hard to tell from the public broadcast if any of the other tributes are near them.

"Yell for me if anything happens," Johnny says. "I'm going to my room to convince these sponsors to give us more money."

He goes through his list methodically, slipping on his cheerful Capitol voice and exchanging pleasantries. He makes small talk about the Games, says "gosh, they're so exciting this year!", and makes sure to slip in several reminders about their training scores and how the arena is to their favor this year. "What are the odds, right?" he laughs good-naturedly. 

It's during one of these phone calls that he gets invited to another party, a Happy Hunger Games watch party that's been going on all week, apparently. "Gosh, Johnny, you should really stop by! It's seriously one of the places to be in the Capitol right now, anybody who knows anybody is here! It's so exciting that nobody here has gone to sleep all week!"

Well then, Johnny supposes that he isn't going to get to sleep tonight. He feels anxious at the thought of leaving the Training Center in the middle of the Games, but it looks like Mark isn't going anywhere, and even if he was, there would be no way for Johnny to help. Right now, the most useful thing he can do is to put on his best suit and smile.

When he walks through the common room on his way out, he sees Yuta with a notebook out, a bunch of numbers scrawled messily across it. Yuta waves and puts a finger to his lips, gesturing to where Taeyong and Jungwoo have fallen asleep on either side of Ten, both of them leaning onto his shoulders. Meanwhile, Ten is wide awake, staring at the screen. He doesn't seem to notice Johnny; he's too busy watching Mark on screen, who is muttering in his sleep and twitching in pain. 

Johnny makes his way to the elevator as soundlessly as possible. As the doors close, the last thing he sees is Mark, face screwed up in agony, eyes wide open and staring up past the camera like he's seeing ghosts.

Johnny gets enough money for the ointment by the next day. Mark is still unconscious, so Johnny sends it to Yeji, who has been roaming the treetops above Mark to keep an eye on him while not putting herself in danger. Mark is as good as normal by the afternoon, and when he's able to walk properly he grins brightly at the camera and says thank you.

It ends up being useless, because both of them die the next day. They're ambushed by the full Career pack, all six of them together. Even in the trees, they don't stand a chance. Johnny knows firsthand how adept Careers are at hitting moving targets.

Ten is devastated by Mark's death. He shrugs off Taeyong and Jungwoo's attempts to comfort him and shuts himself in his room, locking the door. It's silent after he leaves, the rest of them looking at each other awkwardly.

Yuta is the first to break the silence. "Well, I guess we're heading home now," he says, looking at Johnny. "Unless you want to wait until tomorrow?"

Johnny looks at the clock, shrugging. "It's kind of late, and I'm tired. But we can go now, if you want."

"Nah, we can wait until tomorrow," Yuta says, yawning. "Might as well stay here as long as possible to leech off of the Capitol."

Johnny nods. "Well, goodnight then." 

He goes to his room and just lies on his bed for a while, thinking about Mark. Imagines Mark here with him, lying next to him like he'd done a week ago, his voice solemn as he'd asked for advice. Thinks about the way his voice had risen in disbelief when he'd asked "how can you believe he liked you when he tried to kill you?", the way his eyebrows had knotted together as he'd tried to confront the reality of the Games, the startled laugh he'd let out when Johnny had reached over to slap his butt. He remembers the look on Mark's face when he'd first tried Capitol food, eyes lit up in wonder, the surprise in his voice when he'd said "this is so good, holy shit, I had no idea food could taste like this!", the way he'd scarfed down his last meal before the Arena like he already knew he was going to die.

Johnny doesn't know how much time passes, with him lying there numbly. He should get up and go brush his teeth or something, actually get into bed instead of lying above the covers. 

There's a knock at his door. Johnny doesn't want to move. He thinks, idly, that Mark isn't moving anymore either, that Mark can’t move even if he wants to.

"Johnny? Are you awake?"

Johnny sighs. "Yeah, come in." He manages to lift his head to watch Ten enter the room hesitantly, the door sliding shut soundlessly behind him. He's wrapped himself in a big fuzzy blanket again, and there are fresh tear tracks on his face. He pauses near the edge of the bed, unsure of where to go. 

"Sorry, I just— didn't want to be alone. And Taeyong and Jungwoo didn't really know Mark, not like we did, so they just— don't get it. And obviously Taeyong is really sad about Yeji, and I'm sad about her too, but I just can't stop thinking about Mark, you know?"

Johnny nods. "Yeah."

"Yeah. Sorry, this was stupid, I'm sure you have a lot more to deal with than I do. I'll stop bothering you now." He turns to leave, the blanket trailing behind him on the floor.

"No, it's fine." Johnny rolls himself over so that he's no longer taking up the whole bed, and pats the space next to him. "You're not bothering me."

"Oh. Okay. Well that's good." Ten sits down gingerly at the edge of the bed. When Johnny doesn't move, he allows himself to topple down onto the bed, still wrapped up in his blanket.

Ten sighs as he tries to let himself relax into the bed. He turns and looks at Johnny, still lying motionless, and shuffles around to extract the blanket from underneath himself so that he can throw it over the both of them. This finally gets a reaction out of Johnny, who reaches up to grab the blanket and turns to look at Ten. "Thanks."

Ten shrugs. "Seemed unfair of me to hog the blanket."

"It's your blanket, though. You have the right to keep it to yourself. And besides, life isn't fair."

Ten sighs. "Yeah, I'm beginning to see that more and more now."

The two of them are quiet for a moment. Even though Johnny wasn't cold earlier, he feels better with the blanket. It's soft and warm and everything he feels that he doesn't deserve. It almost makes him want to cry.

"I've been trying to do the whole positivity thing lately," says Ten. "But I think the more I try, the worse I get at it. It's just hard to think of things to be positive about."

Johnny almost scoffs at that. "Are you kidding me? You have so much going for you. You get to eat good Capitol food every day. You go to parties and get drunk and hook up with people all the time. You have that— freaking ridiculously expensive gemstone mod that you can finally afford soon!" What does Johnny have? Johnny has a house that's too big, a District that's starving, and several closets full of useless Capitol presents.

Ten starts crying again, letting out a choked laugh. "Well, I actually can't get the gemstone mod anymore. I donated all the money to getting Mark that tracker jacker ointment. Turned out to be useless, since he just died the next day. And sure, I have good food and go to parties and all that— but what's the point of having all that if people are dying? If I couldn't save Mark and Yerim?"

Johnny rolls over onto his side, propping his chin up on his palm so he can look at Ten. "Wait, but I thought stylists can't be sponsors? And anyways, saving them isn't your job. It's mine."

"It's my job too! I'm the one who has to make them look good. To attract attention. If I'd done a better job, we would've gotten the ointment sooner."

"Maybe they would've run into the Career Pack anyways, though."

"But maybe they wouldn't have!"

"And then what? They survive until they have to kill each other?"

Ten sobs. "I don't know! It's just— so unfair. And the Careers have such an unfair advantage over everyone else. Why do they have to team up and pick on everyone else first?"

Johnny shakes his head. "You can't blame the Careers for what they do in the arena, Ten. They're just trying to survive, same as everyone else. Blame the people that threw them in the arena in the first place."

They're treading into dangerous territory now. Johnny glances up at the camera, but it looks about the same as usual, the bright red light blinking placidly.

Ten sighs, hiccuping slightly. "I just miss Mark. And Yeri. I don't want to blame anyone. All the politics are so messy."

Johnny nods. "Yeah. I don't even know how they work; they don't teach us that stuff in school, you know."

"They only teach that at the Academy and the University. And only the people from big-name families with a lot of money can attend," says Ten dryly. "I didn't really mind before, since I have no interest in politics anyways, and I always trusted in their decisions. They're like—" he waves his hand in the air, trying to find the words. "I never have to worry about any of that, because they take care of it, you know? All the hard decisions, they shoulder that burden for us. I never questioned it because it was so _complicated_ , like, making decisions is so stressful. Like gosh, I can't even decide what fabric to use when making a shirt, how could I even comprehend the complexity of government?"

"I probably know even less than you," Johnny admits quietly, talking into the blanket to try and muffle his words. "To be honest, I used to think all you Capitol folk were the same, just a bunch of psychopaths laughing at all of us killing each other. I didn't realize how clueless most of you are until I came here for my Games, and even then I was always so... angry. Because you were ignorant and happy and had everything you could possibly want, except maybe the latest fashion items."

Ten laughs shakily. "Excuse you, I never followed the trends like that. I'll have you know that I was a trendsetter."

Johnny smiles. "I'm sure you were. You still are, in fact."

Ten scoffs. "You flatter me, Johnny Seo." He shifts a little closer to Johnny on the bed and sighs. "I feel like there's no point wondering about the inner workings of politics if we're never going to get up to that circle, anyways. I just wish there was something I could do, other than make dresses."

Johnny nods. "Yeah, me too," he says quietly. He can't see any stars in the Capitol, but he tries to imagine how they look in Seven and picks one to wish on anyways.

"We should probably get to sleep."

"Yeah." Johnny agrees. Neither of them attempt to move.

Ten yawns. "Is it okay if I just stay here?"

"Yeah. That's okay."

They're both quiet after that, only the sounds of breathing filling the room. Neither of them fall asleep for a long time, but lying sleepless in the dark with someone else is a lot better than lying sleepless alone.

Johnny's been back in District Seven for about a month when he receives a message from Ten.

 **Ten:** hey, can I call you?

Johnny responds "yes" and wonders what prompted this sudden message. He and Ten have never really talked outside of the Games before, except when Johnny had messaged him a thank you for the birthday present.

The call comes in a couple minutes later, Ten's face projected holographically in the air.

"Hey Johnny! How've you been?"

He's smiling brightly, his hair a different color again. Johnny can't really tell what color it is, though, because the projection washes out his image in a desaturated blue tint.

Johnny smiles back hesitantly, not sure how much he needs to slip into his Capitol persona. "Hey Ten. Why are you calling? Did something happen?" Johnny can't make out Ten's background; it's too far away, appearing blurry and cluttered.

"Nothing happened!" Ten reassures quickly. "I just missed you, that's all!"

A strange feeling takes root in Johnny's chest, and he feels a smile creeping onto his face. "That's good. Uh, I've just been sitting around my house. Playing piano. Same old, same old."

Ten gasps. "Oh my gosh, I forgot that you play the piano! Could I hear you play?"

"Sure," says Johnny. He carries the projection device over to his piano, setting it on top. As he rests his fingers over the familiar shape of the keys, he feels nervous all of a sudden. He's never felt nervous playing the piano before, not even when under the scrutiny of thousands of people and Capitolites. It didn't matter then; it was just a silly talent to show off to everyone, just muscle memory and hitting the right notes. Now, though, with Ten's expectant face projected in front of him, it feels like it matters. This is him, actually playing piano, actually making music.

He feels the wood of the keys underneath his fingers and wonders what kind of tree it came from. Then he takes a deep breath, and begins to play.

Johnny starts getting invited to more and more parties, at least once a week at this point. Since it takes about eight hours to get to the Capitol, this means that he's usually gone for a couple days a week.

"Johnny!" exclaims the host when he arrives. "I'm so pleased you could make it!" Johnny smiles back graciously.

"Of course. How could I refuse your invitation?"

The man laughs, flapping his hand airily. "Oh, you flatter me! But my, Johnny boy," he says, surveying Johnny's outfit with a frown. "Isn't that the third time you've worn that suit?"

Johnny looks down, pretending to be surprised. "Oh, so it is!" he laughs, pretending to look a bit embarrassed. "My apologies, I can be forgetful sometimes." He doesn't mention the fact that this is actually probably the tenth time he's worn this suit.

The man nods understandingly. "Don't worry, we've all been there. But maybe switch it up a bit next time, eh? It's a little... old fashioned, no offense." He says, making a face. Johnny chuckles obligingly. "And with a face like yours, I'm sure you don't need to worry about pulling off a new look!"

Johnny supposes that means it's time to switch up his wardrobe. And when it comes to Capitol fashion, there's only one person he could ask.

Yuta has been getting busier these days, too. Johnny used to be able to walk over to his house whenever he wanted, and usually he'd find Yuta there. But these days, his house is often empty, and Johnny doesn't see Yuta much outside of their scheduled workouts and morning runs.

When he asks Yuta about it, he laughs. "You think you're the only one who's been getting around with the Capitol folk?" he says with a wink.

Johnny snorts. "Not so Mr. Lone Wolf anymore, huh?"

Yuta shrugs, leaning back in his chair. "I think it makes me appear more exclusive. They always feel all surprised and honored when I show up." He points a finger at Johnny. "You should learn from them. My presence is a gift."

Johnny laughs. "Speaking of gifts, isn't it going to be your birthday soon?"

Yuta's eyes light up. "Oh yeah! I wonder what ridiculous bullshit they're going to send this year."

Johnny nods. "Yeah, last year I got this giant floppy hat, a weird body pillow, and a watch. The watch was okay, actually, but I'm not much of a watch person." He keeps Ten's present to himself. It feels too special to be shared.

A strangely contemplative expression flashes across Yuta's face. "Huh. Well, I got a bunch of fake rubber swords, a dress that looks like a curtain, and something called a mood ring. It's supposed to change colors based on your mood or something, but I don't think it works very well."

Johnny wonders how it works, and if the ring would believe him when he says he's happy. Maybe he'll ask Ten about it later. He might know.

He wonders if Ten believes him, when he calls to ask how he’s doing and Johnny says that he’s happy.

For his birthday, Ten sends him more clothes: not just suits this time, but also some shirts and jackets and even a nice dress. Johnny thinks it's all a bit excessive, and some of it is too extravagant for his tastes, but he can't help but admire them all the same; there's always art hidden in Ten's extravagance. Still, a part of him feels guilty about the clothes that hang unworn in his closet, because it feels like such a waste. Sometimes he looks at the bright fabrics and wonders what kind of person he is becoming, if the Capitol is slowly dragging him into their hedonism and luxury. Maybe it's selfish of him to hide these clothes, to keep Ten's creative genius to himself. Or maybe he'd already fallen into the Capitol's clutches the moment he looked at fashion and called it art instead of vanity.

Ten's present also includes a couple pairs of gloves. They're fairly simple, and could probably go with multiple different outfits. Ten had included a note beside them that read "for all your fancy parties~".

Johnny tries them on. They're different from any gloves he's worn before; the only gloves he's worn before was when he was still working in the forests chopping wood, and the temperature got so cold that his hands would freeze without the gloves. Those gloves had been thick and dirty from years of use, still carrying the palm sweat of whoever had worn them before him. 

These gloves are thin and elegant and pristine. When he tries them on, he's surprised by how comfortable they are— they don't feel restrictive. Rather, they feel protective, another layer between him and the world.

Johnny brings up the gloves when he calls Ten to thank him. 

"I'm just curious, though. Why the gloves? And the dress and the jackets and everything else? You've only ever sent me suits before."

"Well, the gloves were because your hands are so calloused! I figured it'd be nice to give your hands something soft." Ten says. Johnny doesn't even know how Ten noticed his calluses, since as far as he's aware they've never held hands. "Also, if you're wearing gloves, the people at your fancy parties won't notice the calluses. They don't like things like that, it'll make them think you're low-class. Obviously I don't care that you have calluses, since my hands are far from perfect, and I keep managing to stab myself with sewing needles— but anyways, point being they'll take you more seriously with the gloves on."

"Huh," says Johnny. "Nobody ever said anything about that to me before."

"Of course they didn't," Ten huffs. "Saying something like that would be an insult, and they don't want to insult you!"

"...Right." says Johnny. Of course they value manners, above all else. "Still, what about the dress and the more casual clothes?"

"I just thought you'd look good in a dress! And as for the casual clothes, well, I've never really seen you in nice casual clothes! It's always either a suit or a tshirt and sweatpants."

Johnny shrugs, laughing. "I mean, I'm either lazing around at home or going to a party. Not much in between."

Ten pouts. "You should visit Taeyong and I's apartment sometime! Or come with us to an actual party, the fun kind where there's dancing and music and you don't need to wear a suit. I'll even stay sober, so there's zero risk of me throwing up all over you."

"I'll think about it," Johnny says. "Anyways, Ten, what do you want for your birthday?"

"I have no idea! Surprise me." Ten says brightly. Johnny groans internally.

"That's not helpful!"

Ten giggles at Johnny's distraught expression. "Fine. Give me something from your District, then! A souvenir, or something."

"Okay, I'll try." There aren't really any souvenirs here, since no tourists come to the Districts, but Johnny hopes he can find something here that Ten would like. After all, the Capitol doesn't have everything. There are some things in District Seven that are unique to this region, unique to home, that the Capitol will never be able to replicate.

Johnny runs into Ten again in the Capitol on his way back to the train station. He's just gotten out of another party and it's now early morning, though the Capitol is just as bright and busy as ever.

"Johnny!" he hears a voice call from behind him. He turns around to see Ten and Jungwoo a little farther down the street, waving and trying to catch up. Johnny waves back with a smile, making his way over to the side of the walkway so he doesn't disrupt the flow of traffic. Ten grabs Jungwoo by the wrist and half-drags him over to where Johnny is waiting.

"Hey!" Ten beams. "I haven't seen you in a while. Oh, you're wearing the gloves!" He exclaims, looking very pleased.

"Ooh, those gloves are really nice!" Jungwoo comments brightly. He's clearly very drunk, half hanging on to Ten to keep himself upright.

"Hey! I haven't seen you guys in a while, either. And yes, I'm wearing the gloves! Thank you for them again, they're seriously really nice."

"It's no big deal, really!" says Ten with a smile. "The wooden sculptures you sent me are really beautiful, too! I’ve placed them all around my apartment."

Johnny smiles in response. "I'm glad you like them. Where's Taeyong, by the way? Don't the three of you usually hang out together?"

"Oh, he's busy with something or other," Ten says dismissively, waving his hand. "He's always disappearing these days, says he's working on some big top secret project."

"He's too cool for us now," Jungwoo declares sadly, resting his head on Ten's shoulder with a pout. "Next thing you know he'll be too cool to work for the Games, too."

Ten pokes Jungwoo's cheek. "Don't say that, Woo! You know that's not true." He sighs. "Well, I'd better get him home."

"You need any help?"

Ten looks like he is about to refuse, but then seems to reconsider. "Actually, yes, that'd be nice! Jungwoo's too tall for me to carry easily, and I'm maybe a teensy bit drunk too," he admits, laughing a little.

They make their way to Jungwoo's apartment, where Ten manages to tuck him into bed. Although he can't see much in the dark, Johnny looks around the apartment curiously; it's definitely smaller than their lavish Training Center apartment, but appears just as high-tech. He wonders if the shower here has as many buttons as the one in the Training Center.

They tiptoe quietly out of the apartment and wait for the door to slide shut. "Thanks, Johnny," says Ten. "It was definitely a lot easier to drag him here with your help."

"No problem," says Johnny. "Well, it's getting late, so I'd better get going."

"You sure you don't want to just stay at mine? We have a nice couch."

Johnny shakes his head. He's starting to get a headache from all the bright lights and glitter, and his skin feels itchy and uncomfortable. He just wants to go home, even if home is just his mom and his big house and trees as far as the eye can see. "No, it's alright."

Ten looks at him worriedly. "Do you know the way back? Let me walk you to the train station."

Johnny could find the way back with his navigator, but he still allows Ten to link arms with him and lead him to the train station. They're quiet as they walk. It's nice, actually, having someone to lead him through these unfamiliar streets; it means Johnny can zone out a little, and not have to worry so much about brushing up against the wrong person or turning the wrong corner. When they get to the station, there are still fifteen minutes left until the train departs. Johnny can see a group of Avoxes running around to unpack boxes from the train, working together to carry the large containers.

"Hey, what if I just got on the train with you? To visit your district?"

Johnny makes a noncommittal noise, looking over at Ten. Ten's eyes are focused ahead, watching the Avoxes do their work, roaming over the sleek, polished shape of the train.

"Are you allowed to?"

Ten shrugs. "No one ever said I wasn't. But the thought just never occurred to me. No one ever goes to the Districts." 

"Why not?"

Ten frowns to himself, brow scrunching up in thought. "I don't know. I just know that no one ever goes to the Districts." He turns to look at Johnny. "I'm sure there must be a reason, right? Maybe I've just forgotten by now. It's been a while since I was in school, and I was never very smart, anyways."

Johnny hums contemplatively. "Maybe." He hesitates for a moment, before offering, "Well, you could come visit if you want."

Ten nods, taking another look at the waiting train. "I'll take you up on that offer, sometime," he says, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "Not today, though. It's late already."

Johnny nods in agreement. "Yeah, it's late." He takes a couple steps away from Ten, towards the train. "Well... see you around, then," he says, waving at Ten.

Ten smiles. "See you around, Johnny."

The tributes this year are named Renjun and Ryujin. Both of them are quiet as they board the train, eyes red with tears.

"Attention all passengers. Due to a small mechanical fault, this train is being delayed half an hour. Please do not leave the train. The train will depart immediately once the error is fixed, to adhere to the schedule as much as possible."

Renjun glances up at the ceiling, looking for the speakers. "Well, that's not a very auspicious start to the tribute experience," he remarks dryly. Ryujin huffs out a laugh in response.

"Well, it is unusual," says Johnny with a frown. "But unusual doesn't have to be bad! It's interesting, though, I had no idea the train had a driver. I thought it was all automated."

"Nah, Taeil's been here this whole time," Yuta says. "He's just always up at the front."

"Oh, you know him?" Johnny asks curiously. He thought he knew most of Yuta's friends, but he'd never heard him mention a Taeil before. And since Taeil must be from District Six, it was especially interesting; it was pretty rare for people to have friends in other districts.

Yuta shrugs. "Not really. Just ran into him once on the train, is all."

Johnny nods. "That makes sense. Anyways, while we're stuck here waiting," he says, turning towards the tributes. "Want a tour of the train?"

Johnny and Yuta are idling by the chariots, waiting for the tribute parade to start. Ten has run off to go talk to Tigris again, whereas Taeyong is staying with the tributes, fussing over Ryujin’s hair and repositioning the squirrel perched on Renjun’s shoulder. They’d decided to go for a forest whisperer theme this year, with a variety of forest animals all over their chariot and draped over the tributes. There are birds sitting placidly on Ryujin’s head, chirping merrily.

It unnerves Johnny, to see all these wild creatures behaving so domesticated and cuddly. He keeps glancing over and expecting the animals to have all flown off or run away, but they’re still there, lying contentedly and occasionally making little noises. The strangest thing is that the animals look happy to be here, the fox nuzzling into Renjun’s touch when he pets it and the birds chirping happily when Taeyong gives them attention. He supposes it makes sense that if the Capitol can manufacture violent, bloodthirsty muttations, they can also breed creatures that are the opposite. These animals are a far cry from the wild ones in the forests of Seven, who are always wary and skittish.

“Johnny Seo!”

Johnny looks up at the source of the voice and immediately stiffens, quickly sliding on his most courteous smile. It’s Luna, District One, Jaehyun’s former mentor. Johnny thought she’d retired and that he’d never have to see her again, but it seems like she’s back to mentoring.

“I just wanted to officially introduce myself, since I never got to before,” Luna says with a bright smile, sticking out her hand for a handshake. Johnny takes it and hopes she can’t feel his unease hiding in the grooves of his palms. “I’m Luna, District One.”

“It’s nice to officially meet you,” Johnny replies. Yuta echoes a similar sentiment as Luna turns to him and shakes his hand as well.

There’s an awkward pause where Johnny doesn’t know what to say, busy searching Luna’s face for any signs of resentment or grudge. He finds none; her smile is just as enthusiastic as ever, but he wouldn’t expect anything less from a One Career.

“Look,” he begins hesitantly. “I’d just like to apologize—”

“You have nothing to apologize for.” Luna says, cutting him off firmly. “Let the dead stay buried. Besides, this is our first official meeting, and you’ve been nothing but a gentleman so far,” she says with a smile. “Anyways, I’d better go back and see if Krystal needs my help. But it’s been lovely to meet the two of you, and I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other over the next several years.” She winks at them, then turns to jog back to One’s chariot.

Yuta glances over at Johnny. “Was that… ?”

Johnny sighs. “Yeah, she was Jaehyun’s mentor.”

Yuta blows out a breath. “Damn. That must’ve been awkward. But at least it doesn’t look like she’s holding a grudge. After all, she came all the way over here to talk to us.”

Johnny nods. “Yeah, I hope you’re right.”

It's a couple days until the Games when someone knocks on Johnny's door. "Come in," he says, glancing up from his tablet.

It's Renjun, face serious and solemn as he hesitates in the doorway. "I have a question," he says.

Johnny nods at him to go on. 

"Do you regret your relationship with Jung Jaehyun?"

Johnny sighs. It seems that even as the years pass, he can never leave the Games behind. 

"I don't know. Regret is a tricky thing. Which part of our relationship are you talking about? Our friendship? Our alliance? Or the part where I killed him?"

Renjun shrugs helplessly. "All of it, I guess. Were you two... together?"

Johnny appreciates how Renjun doesn't ask if they were in love. Johnny wouldn’t know how to answer that. "It was... complicated. But I guess you could say that we were together." Renjun nods, not seeming to know what to do with the answer. Johnny watches his internal struggle for a few moments, before asking, "Is this about Lee Jeno?"

Renjun's head jerks up sharply. He opens his mouth, seeming about to deny it, before he relents. "Maybe..."

"Come in and sit down," Johnny says, patting the space next to him on the bed. "And close the door behind you. What do you want to know?"

Renjun sighs. "I guess I just want to know if it's a good idea for me to ally with him, if I like him so much. And whether I should try anything with him, when we have so little time left."

"I think you should do whatever makes you happiest," Johnny says with a shrug. "Does he like you too?"

"... I think so," Renjun says. "I don't think he's tricking me, at least. But should I ally with him? If it came down to the two of us, I don't think I could beat him in a fight." He pauses, no doubt thinking about all the possible scenarios, all the ways they could end. "Do you hate Jaehyun, for making the first move?"

 _Which one?_ thinks Johnny. Of course, he knows which one Renjun is talking about, the one everyone talks about, where Jaehyun had first put his knife to Johnny's neck. But there are so many other first moves that people don't know about: the one where Jaehyun first introduced himself and asked to be friends, the one where Jaehyun first kissed him up on the rooftop, the one where Jaehyun first saved his life in the bloodbath.

"No, I don't hate him," Johnny says. "I could never hate him for that."

"Really? But— he tried to kill you. And you clearly have some trauma from it, since I can tell you don't like people near your neck."

Johnny shrugs, trying to stay casual. "I think you’d have to be superhuman or something, to not have any trauma from the Games. Obviously, almost getting killed wasn't very fun, but I really can't blame him for trying to kill me. You know how the Games are. No matter how much he liked me, he still wanted to win."

Renjun nods, trying to understand. "If you could redo the Games, would you kill him again? Is winning worth it?"

Johnny shrugs helplessly. "I'm still alive, aren't I? I haven't offed myself or doped myself up with morphling yet. Isn't that an answer in itself?"

Kim Doyoung pays him a visit the next day, marching into the seventh floor apartment like he owns the place and confronting Johnny right there in the common room, where he and Ten had been lounging on the couch. "Your Huang Renjun better not be playing Jeno for a fool," he threatens. "If he breaks Jeno's heart, I will not hesitate to electrocute you."

"I swear he's not playing him," Johnny says, putting his hands up placatingly.

"Tell me why I should believe you, considering your history."

Johnny sighs. "My history has nothing to do with this. Renjun really does like Jeno; he even came to my room last night and asked me if it was a good idea for him to ally with Jeno, because he's afraid he likes Jeno too much." Maybe it isn't a good idea for Johnny to tell Doyoung about how much Renjun likes Jeno, but he thinks the fact that Doyoung is here in his apartment shows that the affection is returned. If not, then Doyoung and Jeno must both be very good actors.

Doyoung scrutinizes Johnny for a while, before letting some of the tension bleed out of his shoulders. "Fine. I believe you. But if you're lying, I'll make you pay." He turns and walks away down the hall. There's an awkward moment of silence while he presses the elevator button and waits for the elevator to arrive, before he leaves without another word.

Ten lets out a breath from where he's sitting on the couch, and slides down further into the cushions. "Gosh. You victors are scary when threatening people. No wonder you survived the Games."

Johnny laughs. "You've never seen me or Yuta threaten anyone, though."

"You pinned me to the floor. I think that in itself is threatening enough."

Johnny winces slightly. "Look, I wasn't trying to threaten you! You know it was an accident."

Ten waves a hand, smiling. "Yeah, yeah, I know. What was Kim Doyoung saying about your history, though?"

Johnny sighs. "He was probably referencing Jaehyun. Does everyone think we were playing each other?" He shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Actually, don't answer that. I don't want to talk about Jaehyun anymore."

Ten looks like he wants to push, but ends up nodding and opening up his tablet. "Wanna see what I've been working on?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to."

Johnny dreams that night of his hands on Ten's neck, leaving bruises, red and purple on his skin shining bright in the moonlight. He dreams of the way Ten had choked on his breath before Johnny had let go, the strangled sound he'd made as he struggled. Except in the dream, Johnny doesn't let go, just keeps holding on until the hard concrete starts feeling like hard rock and blood starts to spread out behind Ten where his head has hit the ground, staining his silver hair red.

He wonders how much it'd cost, to dye one's hair that exact color. Do the people of the Capitol strive for authenticity in their hair dyes, too? What is the price of human blood?

The sharp rocks dig into his knees. Ten has stopped moving, but Johnny is still holding him by the throat, holding on to him. Blood drips down his arm from the knife wound in his shoulder, mixing with the pool of blood on the ground. He’s frozen as he watches the blood spread out, running through the grooves in the rocks and turning them into shiny, red gemstones, sharp and glittering and deadly.

The arena that year is on top of an ancient desert civilization, with a complex network of underground tunnels. Aboveground, mounds of packed dirt provide cover and indicate what used to be houses, which are all connected to the underground tunnel system.

Each room in the network seems to have some surprise. Some of it is good: Renjun and Jeno found some ceramic pots with food inside, and Jeno was able to break the pots so he could wield one of the shards as a makeshift weapon. But most of the surprises are bad, like fireballs and arrows shooting out of the walls and muttations.

They'd just tried to fight some of those muttations, a mass of venomous lizards trying to bite them. The floor of the room had been practically covered in lizards, and they'd jumped around like the floor was lava, trying to stomp on the lizards and prevent the lizards from climbing onto them to reach skin.

Unfortunately, the lizards had gotten the best of them. Now both of them are lying next to each other on the floor, bite marks all over them, venom spreading through their systems. They're holding hands. They're going to die soon. 

Johnny's gaze darts between the TV screen and his tablet, constantly checking for a miracle donation but also not wanting to miss the last moments happening on the screen. There's not enough money for an antidote; he'd spent the money on water yesterday, since they were so dehydrated and there were so few sources of water in the desert. There's not enough time to make phone calls; they're just a few minutes away from death. Neither of them have the energy to move.

A cannon goes off. Johnny can't tell which of them it's for, since both of them are still unmoving. Then he realizes that the fact that his screen hasn't gone dark means that the cannon was for Jeno, and that Renjun is still alive.

Renjun seems to realize it too, because he finally stirs, pushing himself up on an elbow to look at Jeno's face. He doesn't cry, probably because he's too tired and dehydrated, but he does grab Jeno's face and put his fingers to his neck to check for a pulse.

"Come on, Jeno, wake up!" He slaps Jeno's face gently, though his face looks like he's already given up hope. After another few seconds with no response, he sighs, lying back down and grabbing Jeno's hand again. It's still warm from the heat of the desert, and like this he can almost pretend that Jeno is just asleep.

A few minutes later, there comes an insistent beeping noise. A robot deposits a silver capsule next to Renjun's head. Johnny looks down at his tablet to double check if he accidentally clicked on something, but his number of credits is still the same, and the antidote is as expensive as ever.

Renjun doesn't seem to register the gift at first, but the beeping gets more insistent the longer he ignores it and so he eventually raises his head to look for the noise. When he sees the capsule, he manages to get up again and pick it up, struggling to open it with his limbs weakened from the venom. Eventually, though, he pries it open and takes out a small vial. There are instructions printed on the back.

Renjun squints at the label, struggling to read the text with his head feeling sluggish. He uncaps the vial and downs the whole thing, before collapsing onto the floor and grabbing Jeno's hand again. His eyes close. He seems to go still.

He must be exhausted, both from the long day and from battling the venom in his veins. Johnny hopes that he's just sleeping, instead of laying down to die. He hopes, selfishly, that Renjun will wake up in the morning instead of going peacefully in his sleep.

Johnny heads to the third floor to thank Kim Doyoung, but he's nowhere to be seen. The floor is totally empty, lights out, everything organized neatly as if no one had ever lived here. He wonders if all these apartments just sit empty for the whole year until the Games begin again.

He wanders into a bedroom and observes how the bed is neatly made, not a pillow out of place. It's only been a couple hours since Jeno died, so Doyoung must have booked it out of here first thing. Maybe he had some urgent matter to attend to in District Three, or maybe he just didn't want to talk to Johnny. Maybe he never meant to let Renjun have the antidote, and Jeno just died before it could reach him.

Either way, Johnny feels like he owes Kim Doyoung something. He hopes he'll see him again.

Renjun wins the Games with a brutal efficiency. Johnny greets him on the tarmac after he disembarks from the hovercraft, all traces of blood or scarring already healed and wiped clean. Still, that doesn't stop Johnny from brushing back Renjun's bangs to check the location on his forehead where a knife had slashed, or being careful when hugging him in case his ribs are still hurting.

Ten, Jungwoo, and Yuta are waiting too— Ten and Jungwoo to help with the after-Games interview, and Yuta for additional emotional support.

"I know it's a pain in the ass, but you're going to have your interviews today," Johnny says in the car ride back to the Training Center. "They want all your memories to be as fresh as possible, or whatever."

Renjun nods quietly. He's barely spoken since he got off the hovercraft. 

Johnny gives a brief rundown of the interview process, before letting the rest of the car ride pass by in silence. At their apartment in the Training Center, the prep team gets to work quickly, dressing Renjun in a baby blue suit and styling his bangs so that they fall over his forehead.

Renjun stares at himself in the mirror distastefully. "Do I have to go back to the cute-and-innocent boy image? They all just watched me kill people."

Jungwoo winces. "You don't have to say it like that," he protests.

Ten falters from where he's fiddling with the cuffs of Renjun's shirt. "Well, we could switch to a different suit if you want— I have another one prepared! I just thought you wanted to stick with this image."

"Why would I want to stick with this image?" Renjun scoffs.

"Well whether you want to or not, you're going to have to," Johnny responds. "So changing suits won't make much of a difference."

Renjun stares at Johnny uncomprehendingly. "Why do I have to keep acting cute? I thought it was just to get me sponsors. But I don't need sponsors anymore! I have a house and all the money I could ever need."

Johnny sighs. "What happens in the Games stays in the Games. The Capitol doesn't like seeing that the tributes are changed afterwards. It makes it harder for them to pretend that the Games are all fun and excitement."

"Fuck what the Capitol wants! They need to stop pretending!"

It's silent for a couple moments, as Johnny tries to think of what to say. Eventually, Yuta steps in.

"Look, Renjun, keeping up appearances is just part of the deal of being a victor. You think the Capitol would let you walk easy after the Games? The house, the lifelong pension, it all comes at a price."

"I thought that price was the twenty three people that died! Nobody ever told me that this was part of it too!"

Yuta shrugs. "Well, it is. Tough luck, kid. So you're gonna walk out there, smile to all the cameras, and act cute as hell, okay?"

Renjun glares, eyes wet with angry tears. "That wasn't part of the deal. That's not fair."

"Nothing ever is, kid."

Johnny wakes up bright and early on the day the Victory Tour is supposed to start. He heads over to Renjun's house to make sure he's awake before the cameras get there.

He's surprised to find Yuta sitting with Renjun at the kitchen table, eating breakfast. "Hey," he says to Yuta. "So you're actually coming? I thought you were joking."

Yuta shrugs. "I told you, it's not like I have anything better to do. And I liked the bread in District Three."

Johnny plops down at the table and grabs a croissant. "Alright, suit yourself." He turns to Renjun and offers a dry half-smile. "Ready for your Victory Tour?"

Renjun sighs. "No," he says flatly.

"Come on, you gotta get warmed up! Give us some aegyo!" Johnny exclaims sarcastically. 

Renjun snorts. "I'll save it for the cameras."

Just then, there's a knock at the door. The three of them look at each other to see who's going to get it.

"Renjun, it's your house, so you should greet our esteemed visitors!" Yuta says. Renjun groans but complies, standing up to go open the door.

"Good morning!" Jungwoo exclaims brightly as he enters the living room. Ten is right behind him, eyes wide and looking around curiously. 

"Wow, I wish we had time for a house tour! I've never been in one of these houses before." Ten says. "Unfortunately, we're on a tight schedule here, so stuff that last pastry in your mouth and go to the bathroom, prep is already setting everything up there," he says, directing the last part at Renjun. Renjun nods and does as told, trudging off to the bathroom reluctantly.

"When do we have to leave?" asks Yuta.

"Interview is scheduled to be in an hour and a half, and we're leaving pretty much after that's done," Ten says. "Wait, you're coming too? I thought usually only one mentor goes." He looks over at Johnny, who shrugs.

"I wasn't sure if he was coming or not, so I didn't say anything about it, sorry. You don't need to style him though, so it shouldn't really make a difference."

"But this is the Victory Tour, of course it makes a difference! The stops at the districts aren't a big deal since he can just hang around in the back, but we're going to the President's Mansion at the end, remember? And you certainly can't turn up to a formal party wearing that," Ten says indignantly, gesturing towards Yuta's ripped jeans and t-shirt. "Do you at least have a suit or something?"

Yuta sighs, accepting his fate. "Yeah, they're in my closet. Do you need to see them all so you can color coordinate?"

Ten smiles. "Of course! You know me so well."

Johnny follows Ten and Yuta to look at the suits, since he has nothing better to do. His first public appearance won't be until they arrive in District Twelve, and if he just sits around doing nothing one of the members of the prep team might shove a brush in his face and drag him into prep.

Ten throws open the doors of Yuta's walk-in closet with a flourish, looking around. "Okay, where are your suits?"

"In the back," says Yuta, leading the way and gesturing to a small row of suits. There are five sets total, a far cry from Johnny's ever-expanding collection.

"Gosh, that's it?" Ten exclaims. He takes the first one off the rack, a dark magenta one, and holds it up to inspect it. "How long has it been since you wore this? There's dust all over it!"

"Yeah, it's been a while," says Yuta a bit sheepishly. Johnny frowns in thought, feeling like something doesn't add up. With how often Yuta is gone for sponsor parties, it doesn’t make sense for his suits to have dust all over them.

However, before Johnny can ask, Ten has already barreled ahead and chosen another suit to inspect. "I think this one goes the best with what the rest of us will be wearing," he declares, brushing the dust off as best as he can. "Do you mind if I modify it a bit?"

Yuta shakes his head. "Go ahead, be my guest."

Ten claps his hands. "Perfect! Crisis averted. Now, we still have about an hour before the interview, and I've always wanted to visit the Districts. Would you guys mind giving me a tour?"

Johnny and Yuta glance at each other. Yuta raises his eyebrows at Johnny as if to say _your stylist, your responsibility_. "I'd love to give you a tour, but I'd really like to finish my breakfast first. However, I'm sure Johnny has nothing better to do!" Yuta says with a grin.

Johnny wants to finish his breakfast too since all he'd eaten was a croissant, but he swallows his complaints and smiles at Ten. "Sure, I'd love to show you around."

Ten beams at him, and Johnny's hunger suddenly seems much less important in the face of that smile. Johnny can deal with feeling a little hungry if it keeps Ten that happy. Besides, he's operated on much less food before.

"Great! Where do we start?"

The speech for District Three is the hardest one to sit through. None of them are able to eat much during the celebratory dinner, and after dinner Renjun is quiet and withdrawn, shutting himself in his room and saying that he wants to be alone. Yuta makes some excuse about wanting to go out and buy something, and hightails it out of the hotel suite. Johnny makes a feeble attempt at sleeping before he gives up, and decides to head to the roof.

When he gets there, he's surprised to see Ten already there, lying down on a blanket in his puffy winter coat. Ten looks up as Johnny approaches, waving lazily but not bothering to get up.

"Johnny! Come lie down next to me!"

Johnny complies, sitting down on the blanket and gingerly lowering himself to the ground. Through the blanket, he can still feel the hard grittiness of the concrete. "Hey. What are you doing out here?"

"I've been coming up to the roof every night of our tour so far, to look at the stars," Ten says, waving a hand to gesture at the night sky above them. "I can't believe you all get to see so many of them every day! I had no idea the sky could look like this, until we got to Twelve that first night and I got off the train and looked up. They're so beautiful." He sighs, eyes wide and cheeks flushed from the cold. "I wonder why they're so dim in the Capitol. I really had no idea there were so many stars. I went to the planetarium once, and saw the stars there, but we could only see them there because of special technology. But you don't need a planetarium to see these stars. It’s so nice that you all get to see this every day."

Johnny doesn't know what a planetarium is, but he nods and hums in agreement anyways. The stars really are beautiful tonight. It's been a while since he stopped and looked up at them.

"The first few days, I thought it was maybe just because there's a different set of stars here that are brighter, and that the sky above the Capitol is just mostly starless. But we've been to... what, ten districts already? Well, Seven doesn't count yet since we didn't spend the night there. But in all these districts, the stars have been in the same places. Even in the districts on the other side of the country! So maybe they're just really dim in the Capitol, though I have no idea why."

Johnny shrugs. "I think you can see by now that the Capitol is pretty different from the districts, in a lot of ways."

Ten nods. "Definitely. I was... so shocked." He shakes his head and laughs ruefully. "Gosh, I had no idea things were like this! I didn't realize how desperate all these people are." He shudders. "Remember how there was a public whipping taking place when we got to Eleven? Gosh, there was so much blood. I didn't know violence happened regularly outside of the Games. In the Capitol, usually punishment for your crimes means getting fined, or your family rank demoted. Or in extreme cases, it would be forced prostitution, or getting sent to the Districts, or turning into an Avox or a Peacekeeper. But I've never seen someone treated like that before, just... tied up and whipped. Does that kind of thing happen often?"

"Not super often. But it does happen."

Ten shrinks in on himself a little, curling up into a ball. The early February wind is cold and harsh on the exposed parts of Johnny's skin, and he crams his hands into his pockets so that they don't get cold.

"It was— we were so close to it, Johnny. Right in the town square. I wanted to stop it, but what can I even do?" Ten sniffs, blinking back tears. "Gosh, I shouldn't cry or my tears will freeze. But it was just— I was so scared. I've never been scared of a Peacekeeper before."

Johnny doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't say anything. Just keeps looking up at the stars until the tiny pinpricks of light have burned themselves into his eyelids.

Ten looks over at Johnny and sighs. "Sorry. I feel like I'm always crying or having some emotional breakdown in front of you. You must think I'm really stupid, for not realizing all these things."

Johnny turns his head towards Ten, so that they're now face to face on the blanket. "I don't think that makes you stupid. I'm glad you're realizing things. And it's okay to have emotional breakdowns in front of me; after all, that's what friends are for."

Ten smiles, bright in the starlight. "I'm glad we're friends."

"Me too," Johnny says, and finds that he means it.

"This friendship thing is a two-way street, though," Ten says, narrowing his eyes at Johnny, "and you haven't had an emotional breakdown in front of me yet. And I know you've got plenty of stuff bottled up, I can see it in your face."

Johnny shrugs. "I can't break down on command, Ten," he says with a laugh. "I guess you'll just have to wait and see."

"Ugh, fine," Ten says, rolling his eyes good naturedly. "Let's just keep starwatching then. Maybe you'll spill your heart out once you're overwhelmed by the beauty of the night sky. And scoot over! It's so cold up here."

Johnny smiles and complies, not even complaining when the new patch of blanket he lies on makes his back cold again. Moving over doesn't help much with the freezing temperatures, since they're both already wrapped up in layers of jackets, but it still feels nice. It's worth it for the view.

Usually, the word "exclusive" doesn't mean much when printed on party invitations from the Capitol. Parties that claim to be "exclusive" have pretty much the same amount of people and a similar crowd to all the other parties that Johnny goes to, which is why he doesn't think much of it when heading to today's "exclusive" party.

The June air is humid and sticky when he exits the train station to head to the hotel, making him feel uncomfortable in his suit. His unease only grows when he arrives at the party. There are far less people here than he's used to; he never would've thought that he'd feel more comfortable in a crowd of ostentatious Capitolites, but the air at this party feels different. Like it truly is exclusive. The penthouse room is wide and spacious, and it makes Johnny feel exposed, like there's nowhere to hide.

He glances around and sees people gathered around the tables, talking and laughing with each other. To his surprise, he spots Kim Doyoung, swirling a flute of champagne and standing by himself in a corner of the room. He looks irritated and disinterested in everyone around him, and Johnny wonders why he isn't at one of the tables, networking with everyone else.

He heads over to Doyoung, both because he needs a familiar face to soothe the unsettled feeling in his gut and because it feels so strange to see Doyoung alone, separate from the rest of the people.

"Hello," he greets tentatively, searching Doyoung's face for a reaction.

Doyoung glances up, a brief flicker of surprise crossing his face. "Oh, it's you. I should've figured I'd see you here one of these days," he says mildly, sounding resigned.

Johnny can't tell if Doyoung is trying to be condescending or not, but at least he's not outwardly hostile. He shrugs and tries to laugh it off. "You know me. Always the life of the party, and all that..." he trails off awkwardly, looking around. Doyoung huffs out a dry laugh. "Look," Johnny says, "I just wanted to thank you, for what you did for Renjun. It really... well, it really means a lot to me."

Doyoung shrugs. "Don't thank me. Thank all the generous sponsors who donated their money," he recites sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Or really, you should be thanking Jeno. He told me that if he died, he wanted Renjun to live, so all I did was honor his request."

"Well, thank you for honoring it, then. Not everyone would have."

Doyoung shrugs. "Don't mention it." Suddenly, Doyoung stiffens, as Johnny hears footsteps approach from behind him.

"Johnny Seo!" the man exclaims. He claps a hand on Johnny's shoulder and Johnny tries his hardest not to flinch. "So glad you could make it!"

He looks to be a man in his mid-fifties, fairly tall and sturdy-looking. Johnny slips seamlessly into his Capitol persona and smiles, aware of Doyoung watching him from the side. "I'm honored to be here," Johnny says, turning to face the man so that his hand falls naturally off of Johnny's shoulder. He reaches out a hand to shake.

"I'm Calvus Creed. It's very good to meet you," he says, grinning widely. Johnny finds it unnerving. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Doyoung slip away, heading for another corner of the room.

"Now," says Calvus Creed. "I'm sure you've realized by now that this isn't your run-of-the-mill Capitol event." He lets out a large guffaw after he says it. "Get it? Run-of-the-mill?"

Johnny laughs politely and mentally urges the guy to get to the point already.

"See, here's the deal: the special thing about these events is that there are certain activities that take place during the afterparty, and you will be expected to participate in these activities."

"What kind of activities?" Johnny has an inkling already, but he hopes that he'll be proven wrong.

"Why, I'm glad you asked, my boy! I'm glad you asked," Calvus exclaims effusively. "You'll be expected to please the other guests, if you know what I mean. I'm sure you're aware that you're a very attractive young man. There are many people who would love to have you, and some of those people are here today."

A chill runs down Johnny's spine, but his smile stays pasted on his face. "What would happen if I wasn't able to make the afterparty?"

"Oh, that'd be a shame. It'd be very much a shame indeed."

Although the words are innocuous enough, something about the way he says it and the glint in his eyes makes Johnny suspect that there are far more dire consequences to not attending. "Why would it be a shame?"

"Well, you might start the Games next month and realize that you suddenly don't have any sponsors," he says with a shrug.

Johnny wants to retort and say that his tributes don't need any sponsors to survive, but he knows that's not true. Nobody has ever won the Games without the help of sponsor gifts. Your victory is not just yours; it is the victory of all the people who betted on you.

 _You can't give up on your tributes_ , he hears Taeyeon say in his head. As selfish as it is for him to protect their tributes at the expense of the others, it would be even more selfish for him to say no and let them die.

Calvus seems to be watching Johnny's internal struggle with amusement. "Of course, if that's not enough, it'd be even more of a pity if you got home one day and realized that your mother has gone missing," he says with a nonchalant shrug.

Johnny's eyes widen at that, failing to hide the flash of panic that jolts through his body. Calvus chuckles upon seeing Johnny's reaction, reaching over to clap him on the shoulder again.

"So you'll come to the afterparty, right, my boy?" He says with a grin.

Johnny smiles back woodenly, the corners of his lips straining at the motion. "Yes, of course. It'd be a shame if I didn't."

Johnny had never imagined his first time would be like this. He'd always thought it'd be with some nice person in District Seven, in a cozy log cabin, a fire crackling in the hearth and illuminating the room in a warm glow. Instead it's cold tile and harsh fluorescent light, penetrating through his closed eyelids and giving him a headache. It hurts more than he thought it would, but he grits his teeth and bears it. Thinks about the pain of a knife in his shoulder and tells himself, if you can get through that then you can get through this. It hurts less, in a way, because this time he has no affection for the man who is causing the pain.

When he walks out of the hotel he sees Doyoung waiting for him, leaning against the wall next to the exit. The many bracelets and watches on his wrists glimmer in the warm lighting of the lobby, and he looks every bit as put together as he did before, not a hair out of place. Johnny supposes he must have a lot of practice with putting himself together.

"Hey," says Johnny, unsure of what to say next. His eyes fall upon the distracting array of bracelets on Doyoung's arms, spotting a familiar-looking gold watch. "Nice watch. Is that a thing all mentors get? I got one just like it and I think Yuta has one too."

Doyoung gives him a strange, searching look. "No, not all mentors get it, but some of them do. It's quite nice. Have you ever tried it on?"

Johnny shakes his head. "No, I'm not much of a watch person."

"I wasn't either, but this watch changed my mind. I think you should try it on," Doyoung says intently. His gaze bores into Johnny's, as if he's trying to communicate something beyond words.

Johnny shrugs, a bit confused but recognizing that the watch seems to be important somehow. "Okay, I will when I get home."

"Are you heading to the train station?" asks Doyoung. "We can walk together."

Johnny had been planning to flag a taxi, but he could use the company. "Alright," Johnny replies. Doyoung sets off at a brisk walk, and Johnny winces as he tries to keep up. Normally, this pace wouldn't be a problem, but right now his legs hurt and it's hard to control his facial expressions to look like he's fine. Doyoung notices, and quickly slows down.

"Sorry," he says, letting Johnny take the lead. "I forgot this was your first time. They must've caught you off guard, but in the future, it'll hurt less if you prep first."

Johnny nods. "How... when did this start for you? And how often do you have to do something like this?"

Doyoung sighs. "I started last year. Where do you think I got the money for that antidote? And as for how often, it's usually every other week or so, though there’s a lot of events during the Games. But it all depends on who's at the party."

"Every other week?" Every other week, for the rest of the foreseeable future, until he gets too old and the Capitol grows tired of him. He just hopes he'll get used to it, so it hurts less. _After all, one of the top skills for survival is adaptability,_ he hears echo in his head. The words bring up more thoughts of Jaehyun, of his easy smile and casual nonchalance towards sex. He shakes his head. "I wonder how Jaehyun did it..." He mutters.

"You mean Jung Jaehyun?" Doyoung asks, turning towards Johnny in confusion. "What does he have to do with this?"

"District One. Luxury. What do you think luxury entails, other than jewelry and watches and fashion?"

Doyoung's eyes go wide. "You mean...? But Jaehyun wasn’t a victor! He wasn’t even eighteen yet!"

"You think the Capitol cares about that? District One is the Capitol’s favorite for a reason. They've got diamonds and sex; what else could a Capitolite possibly want?"

Doyoung is quiet for a few moments. "I had no idea," he says, still shocked. They walk in silence for a bit, before Doyoung says, "Sorry about that comment I made last year, by the way. About your history. I just— was being overprotective of Jeno. You know how it is."

"It's okay. I would've been suspicious too, if I were you."

The rest of the walk is spent in companionable silence. The two of them linger for a moment at the train station, where it splits into different platforms for different trains.

"Well," says Johnny. "I guess I'll be seeing you around, huh?"

"Yeah," says Doyoung with a wry smile. "See you. And feel free to call me sometime, if you ever need help."

Johnny nods. "I will. Until next time, then."

"Until next time."

When he gets back to Seven, Johnny decides to take up a different offer of help, one he'd almost forgotten about. He takes a deep breath as he reaches up to knock on Taeyeon's door.

"Johnny! Come on in!"

He sits down at the kitchen table as Taeyeon prepares a mug of iced coffee for him. It's morning now, since he came here right after getting off the train, and the sun streams in through the wide windows.

"So, what brings you here today? I haven't talked to you in a while."

Johnny takes a deep breath, unsure of how to phrase his question. "Did you— is it common for the Capitol to threaten victors into prostitution?"

"Oh," Taeyeon breathes out quietly. "So that's what this is about. Well, the answer is yes. They don't do it to everyone, but if there's demand then they will supply." She peers at him closely. "Did they proposition you?"

"Yes," Johnny says, taking a sip of his coffee. "Why didn't you warn us ahead of time? Does Yuta know?"

"I don't know if Yuta knows or not. I haven't told him, but he could've found out from another victor. As for warning you... well, I guess we just hoped it wouldn't be necessary. We weren't sure how to approach it, and we wanted to give you some time to get used to the regular victor life first... and since most people forgot about you after the first few years, we thought you'd be safe." Taeyeon looks down at her cup, the steam rising from it to cover her face. "I'm sorry... I thought you wouldn't have to know. I thought I was protecting you."

Johnny sighs. "It's okay. I guess it wouldn't have changed the outcome." They're silent for a few moments. Johnny drinks another sip of his coffee just to hear the ice clink against the glass. "Do you think I should tell Renjun?"

Taeyeon nods. "I think that's a good idea. He's probably safe for now, though. Most of the time the demand is highest right after someone's Games. If he hasn't been dragged in yet, he probably won't get dragged in for a while."

Johnny nods. "Okay. That's good to hear. Thanks."

"Of course. Anytime." As she gets up to put her mug in the sink, the sunlight glints off of the gold bracelet on her wrist.

When Johnny gets home, he makes a beeline for his closet, digging through the pile of stuff for the small, unassuming box. He sits on the floor as he opens it to take out the watch. It seems to wink at him.

He puts it on hesitantly. For a moment, nothing happens, but then there's a subtle pause— all the electronics in his house stop working for a split second. The lights stop buzzing, the holo display flickers, and the red camera light seems to stutter for a second before it resumes its usual blinking rhythm. A small holo display unfolds in front of the watch face.

"Welcome, Johnny Seo," says a robotic female voice. "Would you like to join the Resistance?"

Johnny stares at it, not quite believing his eyes. He doesn't dare to hope, but for the first time in a while, the future doesn't look so bleak.

A couple weeks later, he's at another "exclusive event". Doyoung is there too, along with Krystal Jung, from District One. They're leaning against the wall, champagne flutes in hand. At a nearby table, a group of men are laughing and discussing something with each other, heads leaned in close together.

Johnny makes his way over to the two of them. "Hey. How are you guys doing?"

Doyoung nods at him in greeting, but doesn't respond, tilting his head towards the group of men. Krystal glances over at him and hisses out a "Shh, be quiet", before she goes back to staring off into space.

Johnny is confused, but stays quiet, joining them on the wall. The two of them seem like they are lost in thought, just idling quietly, but they occasionally share meaningful glances with each other. After a loud proclamation from the nearby table causes Krystal to roll her eyes, he realizes— they're eavesdropping on the conversation.

"My daughter scored excellently on her Academy evaluations yesterday," one man brags.

A woman dressed in an elaborately detailed dress scoffs at that. "Big deal, so did my son! Your daughter isn't going anywhere unless you get a good harvest this fall, and I heard on the grapevine that the chances of that are rather low this year," she says mock-pityingly. "Guess you'd better try again next year."

"At least I'll have a next year, and several years after that," retorts the first man. "What are you going to do when those mountains of yours run out of coal?"

"My family has plenty of other assets," she replies primly. 

The conversation moves on, touching on how so-and-so's hotel is doing, the University's admission rates, and what new drama is going on in the Flickerman family. Though it's hard for Johnny to pick out individual conversation threads from all the chatter, he's able to remember bits and pieces of various conversations.

Eventually, the party begins to end, with some people filtering out of the room while other people stay behind for the afterparty. Once the majority of the group at the table leaves, Doyoung sighs and pushes himself off the wall. "Finally. I'm so sick of standing around. I have no idea why they make us come to the party when they only need us for the afterparty, anyways."

Krystal shrugs. "Probably just to waste our time. At least we get to eavesdrop on their conversations, though."

"But most of what they say here is useless. All the real talk happens at the afterparty."

Krystal levels him with a look. "You know you shouldn't underestimate the party chatter."

Doyoung huffs. "I know, I know. It's still boring most of the time, though." He looks over at Johnny, who is slightly bewildered at the interaction that had just taken place. "Sorry, Johnny, I don't think I've properly introduced the two of you yet. Johnny, this is Krystal Jung, District One. Krystal, this is Johnny Seo, District Seven."

"Nice to meet you," Krystal says with a smile.

"Nice to meet you, too," Johnny replies.

Over Krystal's shoulder, Johnny sees one of the party hosts heading in their direction. There's no one else around, so he must be heading towards them.

"Well, guys," says Johnny. "I guess it's time for the afterparty."

The man he's with today is of average height, thin and wiry, and his smile makes shivers crawl up Johnny's spine as he walks in. His nails are long and sharp, polished to a shine.

Johnny freaks out when the man reaches out to lay a hand on his neck; immediately, he flips them over so that he's pinning the man down on the bed. The man snarls at him and levels him with a cold, threatening look. "Release me," he demands, and Johnny jumps to comply, letting go of him and backing away. 

"I'm sorry, sir," Johnny says, giving a perfect ninety degree bow. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

The man seems to consider it for a moment, before nodding. "I'll let you off with a warning this time. You better make sure it doesn't happen again, though. It'd be bad for business."

"Yes, sir. Of course."

Johnny is prepared the next time he does it, prepared for the fingers that reach up and close around his neck. The man's fingernails dig into his skin. Johnny can't breathe. He struggles to stay still, tries to separate himself from the pain, tells himself that this man can't hurt him. As long as Johnny doesn't care about him, he can't hurt him. 

The man's thumbnail pierces the side of Johnny's neck, drawing blood. Johnny reminds himself that this isn't a knife, that the bed beneath him is soft instead of hard rock, and that he doesn't care about this man, so this man can't hurt him.

When the Games roll around, Johnny gets increasingly busier. There are always a lot of parties going on around the Games, and as the Games draw closer the betting stakes rise, meaning it's time to talk up his tributes to all potential sponsors.

There are also some events of the other kind, of course. In the week leading up to the Games, while their tributes are busy training, Johnny is almost always out of the apartment. He usually tries to get back so he can have dinner with everyone else, but sometimes he'll have to leave to go to another social obligation right after dinner. He feels bad about it, since it feels like he's neglecting his tribute, but he tells himself it's okay since he's doing all this for Jisung's sake anyways.

He gets back late one night, sore from an exclusive event, to find Ten sitting on the couch with his tablet propped up on his knees. He looks up when Johnny enters the room.

"Gosh, where have you been? Did you just get back? It's so late!" Ten exclaims, putting aside his tablet to scrutinize Johnny worriedly.

"I've been out networking, you know that," Johnny says with a sigh. He eyes the couch, wondering if it's worth it for him to walk to the bedroom instead of collapsing on the couch right now.

"Do you have to go to all these parties?" Ten asks. "You've been exhausted this whole week. You're out of the apartment more often than not. This can't be healthy."

Johnny shrugs. "Don't have much of a choice, do I? What are you doing up, anyways?"

"Just working on a design. Don't think I can't tell you're trying to change the topic, though," Ten says, pointing a finger at Johnny.

"I just don't know what else to say about it." Johnny says, making his way to his bedroom.

"It's fine if you don't want to talk about it, but like— isn't there anything I can do to help? Run you a bubble bath, give you a massage, write some thank-you notes?"

Johnny hesitates, turning around to face Ten. His back aches sharply as he does so, as if telling him to shut up and accept the offer. "... I guess a massage might be nice."

"Great!" exclaims Ten, clapping his hands. "Go to your room and wait for me, then. I'll grab some stuff and then we can get started."

Johnny heads to his room and quickly changes into a t-shirt and sweatpants before he collapses onto the bed, sighing as he relaxes into the mattress. He's so tired. And he needs to wake up early enough to have breakfast with everyone else tomorrow.

The door slides open quietly as Ten comes in, carrying a whole stack of towels and a bottle of massage oil. "Hey," he says. "I need you to move a bit, so I can put the towels on your bed."

Johnny rolls over to the edge of the bed so that Ten can lay down the towels. "Wow, fancy. Have you done this before?"

"I worked prep for three years before I became a stylist. So yeah, I know what I'm doing, don't worry."

Johnny snorts. "Saying you worked prep isn't exactly reassuring. My prep team were always rushing me through everything. It wasn't very relaxing."

Ten laughs softly. "Okay, fair enough. The Games are always on a super tight schedule. But there’s no rush this time, so I swear I'll make this as relaxing as possible for you."

Johnny nods, moving to lie down on the bed with his head to the side. "Okay. That's good."

The bed dips as Ten gets on to kneel next to Johnny. "Can you take your shirt off?"

Johnny sighs. He was just starting to get comfortable lying down. Still, he manages to wriggle the shirt off without having to get up, dropping it carelessly on the carpet.

"Okay, good. Any areas in particular you want me to focus on?"

"My back hurts. Like, lower back."

"Okay." Ten warms up the massage oil in his hands, hesitating for a moment before he places his hands on Johnny's back and starts to move them up to his shoulders. Johnny stiffens instinctively as he gets further up, and Ten pauses. "Is this okay?"

 _He can't hurt you_ , Johnny tries to tell himself, repeats it in his head like a mantra. _He can't hurt you. He can't hurt you because_ —

Johnny feels dizzy, all of a sudden, even though he's lying down. He tries to take deep breaths. Ten's hands are warm on his back, and he tries to ground himself on that warmth. "Maybe just—" he swallows, head pounding, "Maybe just stay away from the shoulders? Nothing personal, I just..."

"Okay, no shoulders. Got it." Ten resumes movement, up and down and circular, and Johnny tries to focus on the patterns of his hands. Once his heart rate has calmed down from the initial panic, it does actually feel relaxing. He shoves the panic out of his mind, too tired to analyze it, and just lets himself sink into the mattress. He really is exhausted, and is starting to crash hard from the earlier adrenaline rush.

He drifts in and out of consciousness, focusing only on his own breathing, the sound of his heartbeat in his ears, and the warmth of Ten's hands in constant motion.

"Does your back feel better now?" Ten asks after a while.

Johnny hums out an affirmative, still drifting pleasantly.

"Good. Wanna go to sleep now?"

Johnny doesn't want to stop drifting, but the small voice of reason in his head tells him that he really should sleep. "Okay." Still, he can't bring himself to move under the covers. Ten gets up to wipe his hands with a towel, and huffs out a laugh when he sees that Johnny still hasn't moved. "Want me to just fold the blanket over you?"

Johnny nods. Ten places another towel over Johnny's back, then folds the blanket so that Johnny is now in between the two layers of blanket like a flatbread sandwich. "Sleep well, Johnny," he whispers as he slips out the door.

The Games are over for them quickly this year. Both of their tributes die in the bloodbath, and it's over so fast that Johnny feels too much emotional whiplash to be properly sad.

They stay in the Capitol an extra day, because apparently Yuta has some sort of meeting he needs to go to at night. However, when he walks out into the common room, he's not wearing a suit.

"Where are you going?" asks Johnny.

Yuta turns to him with an easy grin. "Oh, you know, just some party—"

"Wearing that?"

Yuta scoffs. "What are you, the fashion police? Been hanging out too much with your stylist?"

Johnny sighs. "Yuta, stop bullshitting me. I'm not stupid. Is it related to this?" He asks, tapping his wrist in the empty space where a watch would be. Johnny's not wearing his right now, since he wasn't planning on going anywhere; he usually only wears it to parties so that it can record audio.

Yuta looks surprised. "Oh, so you finally know?"

"Yeah, Doyoung clued me in."

"Oh, okay then. In that case, yeah, it's related."

"What do you do at all these meetings? You've been in on this for, what, the past three years?"

Yuta shrugs, throwing him a cheeky grin. "Top secret info! Maybe you'd be invited if you actually joined when you got the invitation."

"How was I supposed to know I needed to try on some random watch?" exclaims Johnny. Yuta just laughs at him.

"Sorry, gotta go now! Maybe you should go back and try on every present you've ever received, see if any of them do anything."

Johnny laughs. "Shut up!" He yells jokingly. Still, he makes a mental note to sort through his presents when he gets home, just in case there was anything he missed.

"Johnny!"

Johnny is just about to leave the afterparty when Calvus calls out to him. He turns and pastes a smile on his face.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Sorry for the late notice, but we're having another event next week! Same time, same place. I expect you'll be there?"

Johnny freezes. He had been planning on going to another sponsor party that day, and he isn't sure how to resolve the schedule conflict. Honestly, it's a miracle that he hasn't run into more schedule conflicts so far. "Ah, my apologies, but I've already RSVPed to Miss Kang's party..."

Calvus frowns. "Miss Kang? Who's that?"

Johnny masks his surprise at Calvus' lack of recognition. "Miss Kang? She's a very popular singer."

Calvus makes a face, waving a hand flippantly. "Oh, her. She's unimportant. Just cancel your RSVP, she probably won't even notice. And it's not like she can do anything to you if she does."

Johnny wants to argue, say that he and Miss Kang are actually kind-of friends and that his presence would definitely be missed, but he holds his tongue. It's just one party, he tells himself. He can make it up to all the sponsors later.

Calvus laughs at the disappointed look on Johnny's face. "If you're worried about the money, I can make it up to you. I'll even double it, because I'm nice like that," he says with a grin. "So, see you next week?"

Johnny nods. He's never realized how many leagues ahead the Capitol elite are, but like this, the lines are drawn so distinctly. In the Capitol, fame means nothing when it comes to power. The Capitolites are so distracted chasing fame and entertainment that they forget where the real power lies. Or maybe they know that they'll never have any real power, so they chase fame to compensate.

Johnny stops going to as many celebrity parties, after that. He still goes sometimes to keep up appearances or see a couple people he doesn't hate talking to, but there's not much of a point in going for the money anymore. He has enough money. Money is chump change for the Capitol elite; instead, they deal in assets and properties and favors and information.

Johnny is learning how to deal, too. His watch seems to get heavier the more secrets it encodes in its wiring.

It's March, and the weather is cold and rainy, almost like sleet. He's waiting outside the hotel for a bus to arrive, since there's no way he's walking back to the train station in this weather; he didn't bring an umbrella since he never has any idea what weather to expect in the Capitol. Today's people had been rather... enthusiastic, which meant that it was exhausting and dragged on for way longer than he would've liked. It's now almost morning, and Johnny is practically dead on his feet and sore all over. He's slouched into the hard metal bus stop chairs, which isn't very comfortable, but he can't bring himself to move. Instead, he just covers his face with his hood so no one recognizes him and watches as the streets start to swell with morning traffic. He's long stopped being wary of the hustle and bustle of the Capitol; he knows who he really needs to be wary of, now.

Someone joins him at the bus stop, standing in front of Johnny with a hat pulled low over his head and holding an umbrella to protect himself from the rain. Even though Johnny can't see his face, something about his stature and the way he's standing seems familiar. "Ten?" Johnny asks hesitantly, quietly enough that he could play it off as random mumbling if he's wrong.

The man turns around, and Johnny can now see under the brim of his hat that it is indeed Ten, smiling at him in the dreary March weather. "Johnny! I didn't expect to see you here!" His smile quickly drops into a look of concern though, as he takes in the way Johnny is slouched into his seat. "Are you alright? You look even more tired than you did before!"

It's funny because Johnny is actually less busy, these days. He's been doing better. Ten has just caught him at a bad time. "No, no, I'm alright," he says, sitting up straight and flashing Ten an unconvincing smile. "Just tired, but I'm heading home now and I can sleep on the train."

"The train station is on the other side of the city, Johnny. It'll take at least half an hour to get there!" Johnny just shrugs in response. "Are you sure you don't want to crash in my apartment? It's a five minute bus ride away, and I'm heading there anyways to drop off some stuff," he says, holding up a shopping bag. 

"I don't want to intrude," he says politely, the response coming out on reflex. 

Ten scoffs. "Don't give me that, Johnny Seo. We're friends, aren't we? Friends let each other crash all the time. You wouldn't be intruding at all. Taeyong isn't even home, he's been on vacation with his boyfriend all week."

Johnny considers it. Getting to crash in a fancy Capitol apartment does sound nice.

The bus glides to a stop in front of them and opens its doors with a soft whoosh. "This is my bus. You coming?" Ten asks. Johnny nods, and follows him inside.

Ten's bedroom is a kind of organized chaos, with clothes all over the place and posters on the walls. "Sorry about the mess," he says sheepishly. "Anyways, you can sleep on my bed. And don't even try to argue, it's already morning so it's not like you're kicking me out."

Johnny nods, taking off his suit jacket and hanging it over a chair. He then realizes that he doesn't have any clothes to sleep in, and that maybe he should've thought this through more before accepting. "Uh, Ten, do you have any clothes I could wear?"

"Oh, yeah! Hold on, let me go across the hall to steal some of Jungwoo's, I'm sure he won't mind."

Considering some of Jungwoo's strange fashion choices, Johnny wonders if his choice of pajamas is just as absurd. Then again, Johnny can't afford to be picky right now.

Ten comes back in with a very normal pair of sweatpants and a plain black shirt, tossing them on the bed. "Here you go!" He makes his way around the stacks of clothing to the other side of the room, where he presses a button that causes the window to go completely opaque. "Is this good, or do you want some light?"

"No, it's good."

"Okay. I'll be in the living room if you need me! Sleep well."

"Thanks, Ten."

The moment Johnny's back hits the mattress, he falls asleep.

It's mid-afternoon when Johnny wakes up. He exits Ten's room and finds himself in the living room, where sunlight is streaming in through the wide windows. He takes a moment to look around. No cameras, as far as he can tell. "Uh, Ten?" He calls out, not sure where he is and not wanting to look for him in case he goes somewhere he isn't supposed to.

"In the kitchen!" Ten calls. Johnny follows his voice down a short hallway into the kitchen, where Ten is rummaging through a cabinet. "Sorry, I was hungry and wanted a snack. Do you want one too?"

"No, it's okay," Johnny says. He just wants to go back home, but it'd be rude of him to go without saying anything.

"Are you feeling better now?" Ten asks him.

Johnny nods. "Yeah, I'm feeling a lot better. Thanks so much, seriously. I think I'm gonna go now, though—"

"Hold on," says Ten. "Just— obviously you don't have to talk about anything if you don't want to, but seriously, why are you so tired all the time? I know you go to a lot of those parties, but like— you don't have to go to them all, you know?"

"I know," says Johnny. "I've been going to less of them recently, I swear."

"You're still overworking yourself, though. Like, seriously, is there anything I can do to help? When Taeyong overworks himself I just threaten to stay in the studio with him until he goes home, but I can't exactly do that with you. If you're worried about the sponsors, maybe I could go to the parties with you? Double the people, double the networking, so you could cut down on how many you have to go to?"

"No," Johnny refuses immediately. He doesn't want Ten getting dragged into those circles, and he doesn't want the Capitol to see how close he and Ten are. It'd only put him in danger.

"Why not?" Ten persists.

"Because—" Johnny can't think of a good excuse except the truth.

"Do you just not want to be seen with me or something?"

"Well, kind of? But not like that, Ten," he rushes to add before Ten can get the wrong idea. "It's just that, well, it's a lot of attention. Public scrutiny. I don't want to drag you into that life."

Ten nods slowly. "I mean, I understand. I forget that you're a celebrity, sometimes. But I don't mind, it's not like I have anything to hide. And it's not like we're dating or anything." He laughs. "I bet the media would go crazy over it if we were, though!"

Johnny laughs along hollowly. "Yeah, I bet. Anyways," he says hastily before Ten can say anything else, "I really gotta go now. Thank you, again."

"Anytime!" Ten responds cheerfully. "Seriously, if you ever wanna crash again, feel free!"

"Of course," Johnny says. He waves at Ten as he leaves the kitchen, then hightails it out of there to avoid further questioning. Once he's out in the hallway he takes a deep breath, straightens his shirt, and exits the building to merge seamlessly with the Capitol crowd.

Johnny finally gets invited to a resistance meeting, with a little message icon popping up on his watch display. He slips out of the house, careful not to wake up his mom, and makes his way to the meeting location— an abandoned paper mill that had gotten destroyed in a fire.

Yuta and a few other people are already waiting there when he arrives. Yuta waves at Johnny when he enters. "Hey!" he calls quietly, the sound carrying across the empty space. "The people up top finally decided you were trustworthy enough to meet some people."

There are five of them total, and they go in a circle to introduce themselves. Two of them don't offer their names, but they tell Johnny that they are Peacekeepers. "Don't worry, though," Yuta assures Johnny, "they're trustworthy."

The third stranger introduces himself as Taeil, train operator. "He's the voice we heard on the intercom that day our train got delayed," explains Yuta. "Taeil helps us sneak on the train if we need to go to other districts."

"Wow," says Johnny, feeling a little overwhelmed. The past few months, the Resistance had been some vague, inscrutable entity, only existing in flashes of watches and commands on his holo display. Now he has proof that there are more people connected to it, a whole community, not just the survivors of the Games. 

"Yeah," says Yuta with a knowing grin. "They're pretty cool. Unfortunately, since you're busy with all the socializing and information-gathering, you probably won't be involved in a lot of these missions, since the Capitol is keeping a closer eye on you."

Johnny nods, even though his heart sinks in disappointment that he won't get to be more involved. He wants to meet more people in the Resistance, wants to do something more real than prancing around the Capitol all day. "Yeah okay, that makes sense."

"It's not that they don't trust you," Yuta says quickly, sensing Johnny's disappointment. "It's just that they don't want to break the Capitol's trust of you. You're their idol. The perfect gentleman. The masses adore you."

Johnny laughs wryly. "Thanks, I guess."

"Anyways, we have a job for you," says Yuta. "The Head Peacekeeper for Seven is heading back to the Capitol for some important meeting. We want you to get on the same train as him, pretend that you're going to a party, and bug him."

Johnny nods slowly. "Okay. When?"

"This Friday morning. Sorry it's kind of late notice, but it's not like we have much control over when we're lucky enough to overhear things."

Conveniently, Johnny has an event to attend Friday night. He's not sure what he'll do during the several hours between arriving in the Capitol and the start of the party, but he can figure something out. Worst case scenario, he'll just wander around for several hours. Maybe he could even sightsee, flock to all the popular Capitol hotspots and pretend that he's part of the Capitol crowd. "Okay, that works for me."

It's around four o'clock when Johnny steps out of the train station into the bright sunshine of the Capitol. His heart is still beating quickly from his anxiety at getting caught, but it's slowing down now that the Head Peacekeeper is out of sight. He looks both ways down the street, wondering which direction he should go in; he'd never had any free time in the Capitol before, so he'd never had to make a choice like this. 

His choice is made when he spots Ten, messenger bag slung over his shoulder, standing at the side of the road and gazing at the entrance of the train station. He looks as if he is lost in thought, but after a few seconds he seems to come to his senses and continues on his way down the street, away from Johnny. "Ten!" Johnny calls, jogging over. "What are you doing here?"

Ten turns around in surprise at the sound of his name. "Oh, I was just getting off of work! Was planning to pay Tigris a visit before I go home."

"Oh, do you work around here?" Johnny asks curiously. He's always wondered what Ten's studio looks like. He's seen it in the background a couple of times on video call, but it's always desaturated and fuzzy.

A cagey look crosses over Ten's face, almost like he's getting caught doing something he shouldn't. "Ah, not really," he says vaguely. "It's just kind of on the way to Tigris' studio."

"I see," Johnny says with a nod. "Mind if I tag along?"

Ten looks over at him, surprised. "I don't mind! Don't you have some fancy party to get to, though? You already look dressed for the occasion."

"The party's not until later," says Johnny.

Ten shrugs. "Okay then," he says with a smile. "Follow me."

Johnny wanders around Tigris' shop while she and Ten chatter away about recent fashion trends. Afterwards, Ten takes Johnny to dinner, and then to his favorite bakery, where Johnny buys some pastries to take home.

They end up in Ten's apartment afterwards, sprawled on the couches. Taeyong is apparently at his boyfriend's apartment, so it's just the two of them, lazing around with the TV on as background noise.

"When do you have to leave for your party?" Ten asks. "It's getting a bit late."

"Eager to get rid of me?" Johnny teases. Ten laughs and shakes his head. "I'll probably get going in about an hour."

"Okay." Ten pauses, hesitating before asking, "Are you sure you can't let me come with you?"

Johnny sighs. "Ten, I already explained—"

"I know! And it makes sense, but I've thought about it some more, and I realized the media won't be an issue if we just arrive separately! Just put me as your plus one so I can get in, and we don't even have to talk to each other during the party if you're worried about people associating us. I can tell people that I got in through Tigris, she wouldn't mind if I explained it to her."

He looks so serious and determined, eyes reflecting the light of the TV screen. Johnny realizes that Ten really did think this through. He can't find an excuse for why the plan wouldn't work except for the truth: that he's not just going to some party today, and that he won't be able to bring a plus one where he's going.

"I don't want you to do this for me," Johnny protests.

"But I want to help you, Johnny!"

"You're already helping!"

"But I'm not doing enough! Not when you're still so tired all the time, and you're always out there doing stuff, and every time I come home and sit on my couch and waste my time I feel so guilty thinking about how you're out there working yourself to death!" Ten yells frustratedly. "Look, if you're so allergic to accepting my help, then think of it as me being selfish. I want to network so I can get more people to come to my studio. Happy?"

Thinking that Ten would benefit from it does, admittedly, make Johnny feel a bit better, but it doesn't change the underlying problem: that Johnny isn't going to one of those parties tonight. "I get that you want to help. But seriously, you've already helped me a lot, with the clothes and how these social circles work and just by being my friend."

"But I could be doing so much more!" Ten exclaims frustratedly.

"Look, I just don't want you to get involved with this."

"Why not? What's so bad about going to a fancy party and making small talk with people?"

"Because I'm not going to fancy parties to make small talk with people!" Johnny bursts out in frustration. "The parties are a front for prostitution, Ten!"

"Well maybe I could help with that too!" Ten yells back. He quiets down a bit after the outburst, searching for what to say next. "Look, you think I didn't realize that something was up? I can see the bruises sometimes when we video call, but I didn't want to jump to conclusions. And I'm serious when I say I could help. I've done it before, you know?" he says with a bitter laugh. "If there's anything I'm good for other than fashion, it's sex."

"What do you mean?" asks Johnny, as he tries to process the implication of Ten's words. 

"Remember that prostitution ring I told you about before? I was in it. That's where I met Taeyong. His family managed to get us out together," Ten says matter-of-factly. "So like, I'm not new to this. I have experience. What else do you need? Wanna see a resume or something?" Ten asks dryly, raising his eyebrows at Johnny. "Wanna ask me how I'm going to be an asset to your company?"

Johnny shakes his head. "Okay, okay, I get your point. But I'm not doing this for sponsorship money, Ten, I'm doing this because they threatened my family!"

That seems to shock Ten out of his sarcasm. "What? They can do that?"

"Of course they can do that, Ten, they're the Capitol! The people in charge! Old money, like you told me about before! That's why I don't want you getting involved. That's why I don't want you associated too closely with me. If they realize we're close, they can threaten to kill you too!"

Ten leans back into the couch slowly, eyes staring up at the ceiling. "Okay, okay, I get it now."

"As far as they're aware, you're just an innocent Capitol civilian, and I intend to keep it that way! I don't want you getting on their radar."

Ten snorts. "I don't know if you've noticed, Johnny, but I haven't been an innocent Capitol civilian for a while."

Johnny sighs. "I know, Ten."

"Really? Because you sure don't treat me like it."

"I just want to keep you safe," Johnny says weakly.

Ten lets out a deep breath, turning to look at Johnny. "I know. And I appreciate it. But not telling me things doesn't keep me safe."

Johnny nods. "Okay."

Ten glances at the clock. "You need to leave soon, but we can talk about this when you get back."

"It'll be late though," Johnny protests. "I don't want you losing sleep over this."

"I'm already losing sleep over this, so trust me, it won't make a difference." Ten gets up to grab Johnny's suit jacket, which is currently draped on the unoccupied armchair. He helps Johnny put it on quietly, buttoning up the two front buttons for him. "I'll make some tea for you when you get back. But seriously, if I can't do this for you, is there anything else I can do?"

As Johnny straightens out the cuffs of his shirt, his fingers run over the watch hidden underneath. He's become so accustomed to wearing it, that he sometimes forgets it's there. "Actually," he says thoughtfully. "Maybe there is."

Johnny goes home and refers Ten to the Resistance. They have an approval process in place where several current members have to vouch for a new member to be allowed in, so Johnny expects it to take a while. As far as he's aware, not many people in the Resistance know Ten well enough to vouch for him.

He's surprised when he checks the next day and finds that four other people have already vouched for him. One of them might be Yuta, but Johnny has no idea who the other three could be. How big is the Resistance, that three other people know Ten well enough to vouch for him immediately without even starting an investigation?

He's been a part of it for a couple months, and only now is he beginning to grasp the scope of their operations. It makes him feel reassured, almost, that there is such a large group of people who share the same goals as he does. It gives him hope.

Ten calls Johnny to show off his new silver necklace, dangling the pendant in front of the camera. "It's so pretty," Ten gushes, "I wear it all the time these days!"

"I'm glad you like it," Johnny responds.

"I'm so excited to work with you more in the future," Ten says with a grin, tucking the pendant back under his shirt. "For the Games, of course."

"Of course," says Johnny with a smile. "They're coming up soon. Are you excited?"

"What kind of person wouldn't be excited for the Games?" Ten laughs. "It's the most exciting event of the year!"

Before the Games, Johnny used to think of the future as him living in a small, cozy wooden house, with maybe a wife and some kids and a nice routine of working in the forest every day. After he got Reaped, his wooden house changed into the stone mansion of the Victor's Village, with him and his mom and an endless supply of good food. When he became a victor, that vision was slowly taken over by the dull monotony of his days, the feeling of alienation from the rest of District Seven that left his stomach empty no matter how much food he ate. And when he became a mentor, all he could see in his future was an endless cycle of parties and sex and death, year after year after year.

His future never had room for anyone like Ten in it. But now he thinks that maybe one day, it could. Maybe one day, something beautiful could finally bloom.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you all for reading!! I hope you guys enjoyed this and didn't think the ending was too rushed; feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments!
> 
> I'm planning on maybe writing a johnjae prequel; I've already written some of it, but we shall see if inspiration continues to strike haha. school is starting for me in a week, and I also wanted to get another chapter of my mlb AU out before then, so we shall see!
> 
> some other notes on parts of this AU that I didn't have space to include in the fic:  
> \- taeyong has been a member of the resistance pretty much since he was born; his parents are a part of it so he essentially grew up with it. the connections he has from the resistance are why taeyong and ten are able to start as newbie stylists in district seven instead of district twelve. also, whenever taeyong is mysteriously out of the house is for Resistance work.  
> \- I named it "the Resistance" because my brain went "district three ahaha resistors go brr"  
> \- winwin and chenle are both Capitolites who are friends with ten. ten is able to "sponsor" mark by giving his money to winwin, so that winwin can be the official sponsor.  
> \- the other people who immediately vouched for Ten to join the resistance are Yuta, Taeyong, Tigris, and Kun  
> \- haechan is part of the Flickerman family, and eventually takes over hosting the Games interviews. he's also secretly part of the Resistance. he and renjun meet at some point in the future when renjun becomes a mentor.  
> \- one day, ten will eventually get on that train :)
> 
> anyways once again, thank you all for reading <3


End file.
